


Like a Goddamn Katy Perry Song

by tisfan



Series: MCU Kink Bingo [48]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Chasing, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied Mpreg, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Character Death, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Morning Sickness, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Protective Bucky Barnes, Rough Sex, Rumlow is a bitch Alpha, Tony is a BRAT, Torture, discussion of suicide, first heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-07-14 09:50:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16038008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony is chased into the woods during his first heat, where the status-poor alpha, Bucky, lives. Running off the pack of heat-taggers, Bucky takes the young Tony home for recovery, to discover there’s not much time before the omega goes into full heat. Well… now what?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Politzania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/gifts).



> MCU Kink Bingo Square I1 - Unrealistic recovery/refractory times

Tony ran. He ran until there was a stitch in his side, until the air in his lungs was burning, until his heart beat so hard that he could hardly see a thing outside of white mist and lunging shadows.

And then he ran some more, because Brock Rumlow and the rest of his so-called Strike Team weren’t letting up at all. It was hardly fair, given that the little gang of Alpha-holes were encouraged to run sports and do track and field, and omegas like Tony were not.

What the hell reason should Tony, a posh and pretty little omega, need to the ability to get away. It wasn’t like he was going to reject someone like Brock, all Alpha’s alpha, big and strong and smelly. Was he?

Yeah, right.

Obviously the person who decided on the rules and what was appropriate behavior and what an omega would really want were either Alphas themselves, or had never met anyone like Brock.

Personally, Tony was beginning to hope his heart would explode and spare him the indignity. And soon, because they were catching up to him.

It shouldn’t have gotten so bad, Tony thought. He crouched near the side of a tree, hands in the bush around him, using the scrawny branches to hold himself up.

There were laws and rules and custom, and Tony was supposed to be protected, and just because he’d gone to a special school, he wasn’t the first one to try to break the mold, that had been done over and over since the sixties, and he just wanted to learn engineering, was that so bad, not go to the normal schools for omegas and betas to be sheltered and protected -- a lot of betas went to the Alpha schools, too, it wasn’t like he was the only one.

And he’d gone into heat.

He wasn’t supposed to. According to his calendar, he had a whole other week before he should consider taking a day off from school. The first day was always worst, and he’d been lucky a few times recently that it’d already been the weekend. Or, once, over the Christmas holidays. He was young, he was unbound, he only went into heat once a season or so, it wasn’t that bad, missing one day -- or two days -- every three or four months, right?

Except that he’d started unexpectedly. Maybe it was the failure in lab and the self-indulgent crying fit with chocolate ice cream that he’d indulged in that had triggered him, but around lunch that day, Tony started noticing that he was getting looks.

Looks with intent.

Double takes.

Even from the damn teachers, some of whom were alphas, even if they were kinda fat and lazy bound Alphas. No unbound Alpha could be trusted to teach a class with Omega students, so the saying went, and Tony thought that was just more secondary sexist bullshit, they weren’t _animals_ , were they?

Tony caught a hint of Rumlow’s scent in the air and was willing to reconsider the idea that maybe Alphas were animals. Pigs, perhaps.

Snakes.

Pond scum.

Well, pond scum wasn’t really an animal, was it. More like a weed. Or, you know, mildew. Something gross and slimy.

“Well, there you are, little meggie,” Rumlow said, grabbing hold of Tony’s upper arm out of _goddamn nowhere._

“Leave me alone,” Tony yelled, yanking his arm away. He managed it, but only barely, and he was pretty sure he was going to have goddamn Rumlow fucking fingerprints embedded in his bicep, and how was that for being marked?

Better, he thought, looking up into Rumlow’s brilliant brown eyes, than the alternative.

“Don’t know what the fuss is all about,” Rumlow said, grabbing Tony again and pulling him in, until Tony was up against Rumlow’s chest, toes barely scraping the ground. “We all know what you Megs want, don’t we? Just a strong Alpha to take care of you--”

“Well, if you see one, let me know,” Tony said, struggling to get away, because god damnit, it was supposed to be his choice and he didn’t want Rumlow.

Which seemed to be exactly the damn problem. He was in heat, he was supposed to want anyone with a knot to fuck him until he couldn’t see, wasn’t that right?

Tony got another whiff of Rumlow’s rut-smell.

No. It wasn’t right at all, apparently, because Tony did not want that, he didn’t want Rumlow touching him, and dear fucking Christ, he didn’t want Rumlow’s goddamn knot anywhere near him.

Tony stared up at Rumlow’s face and it was all he could do not to cry, scream, panic. Because he was going to get claimed, wasn’t he? Right here, right now, by an Alpha he couldn’t stand and then Howard was going to talk about how it was best, and he’d cut Rumlow a check and make Tony move out, like he was fucking _disgraced_.

The rest of Rumlow’s pack caught up, wild-eyed and eager, snarling like a passel of junkyard dogs. They didn’t even seem human to Tony anymore, just beasts, beast that wanted to tear him apart, and Tony considered throwing himself on Rumlow’s mercy. _Just you_ , he thought desperately, _maybe if it’s just you, I can stand it._

Rumlow ducked his chin and kissed Tony roughly, all scraping teeth and thrusting tongue and Tony coughed and spluttered and fucking bit down, because god damn it, no, he said no, he didn’t--

Rumlow pushed him onto the ground, where all the breath left Tony’s chest in a rush.

“God, you ain’t even worth it, scrawny little snip of a meg. Ain’t a curve on your body, bet you’re just like fucking a puddle of mud,” Rumlow said, wiping his mouth with disgust.

Of course that didn’t make any sense that it should sting and burn and hurt. Did he want Rumlow to want him? No, no, he didn’t, and it wasn’t that he was being rejected that hurt, Tony told himself, just that the words were ugly, and it didn’t matter that it was Rumlow who was saying them, because they’d been said before.

He was worthless, and the fact that even Rumlow recognized it, not even good enough for a fuck, a cheap fuck, and--

“Run, baby, run,” Rumlow told him, kicking Tony’s thigh a few times, making the muscle jump and ache. “Maybe if I catch you, I might have pity on you, give you the best time you’ve seen yet. If you lead me on a good chance.”

Tony almost went tharn, fear-flooded and limp. Like if he just lay there, maybe they’d get bored and go away. He wouldn’t be any sport, and if he could lay like he was dead, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Maybe it would be over quickly.

But there was part of Tony that just couldn’t give up, wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. And maybe there was some satisfaction in chasing him, in making him run like a rabbit, but maybe, just maybe, he could get away.

As soon as he could scramble to his feet, he was gone, knee bleeding from where Rumlow pushed him, chest burning again, and he was being chased, he was an animal, just an animal, a fucking rabbit, but he was running and maybe Tony could be fast enough.

***

How could they just keep coming, Tony wondered. He stumbled into the ditch and couldn’t find the strength to get up again.

He knew he was leaving his scent everywhere, even when he tried to double back, he was in heat, damn it, he was leaving a trail behind him like chocolate and fruity pebbles -- Rhodey had told him that once, said it was nice, and damn it, Tony wished like hell that Rhodey was here, and not somewhere in the Air Force doing wonderful, no doubt patriotic things.

And there were more of them than there was of him. Where he had to keep moving constantly to stay out of sight, the pack of Alphas could surround him and drive him, and they did. Out of the park and out of the town and into the actual-facts _woods_ , and if Tony had felt like a rabbit before, that was nothing compared to how scared and stupid he felt in the damn woods where he couldn’t see shit, and there were more trees and grass and streams than really, there should be.

There was nothing. There was nothing left. He couldn’t even find it in his chest to be afraid anymore, he was just exhausted, and if he was going to cry when they caught him, it was only because they were going to force him to do things that weren’t sleep.

Tony closed his eyes and gave up.

There was snarling, an actual fucking howl. Tony pulled himself into a tight little ball. Maybe they’d miss him in the dark, so busy posturing for each other.

They didn’t really want him, anyway, and that shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. They didn’t want to fuck him, it wasn’t desire. It was just random cruelty, and maybe--

Someone screamed.

There was more snarling.

Tony guessed that someone had found his trail, had realized that he was down and utterly vulnerable and they were going to claim their prize.

And someone else, Rumlow, Tony would have guessed, was objecting. Not because he wanted Tony, but because he had claimed Tony and he didn’t want anyone else to have what was his.

There was fighting. Nearby. Tony couldn’t even bring himself to care. He didn’t uncurl. He was a pillbug.

He was a rock.

He was...

Scooped up and tucked against a warm chest, and there was the smell of sweat and blood and of god, what fresh hell was this?

Tony whimpered.

“Shhh,” a deep voice said. He didn’t recognize the voice. “I’ve got you. Just hush.”

A hand dropped on top of Tony’s head, thick fingers gliding through his hair. He was being petted and cosseted, and, he came to realize, being fucking _carried_ through the woods like he didn’t weigh anything. The person who was holding him was an Alpha, because of course he fucking was, and he smelled rich and warm and mouthwatering. Like pine trees and wood burning fires, like burned marshmallows and vodka. Like rare steak and a slice of hot pepper.

Tony buried his nose against that smell and kept his eyes closed.

Whatever this was, he didn’t want to see it.

Maybe he was goddamn hallucinating, so lost to fear that he was making up an impossible rescue.

Doubtful. Tony wasn’t the romantic type, and if some other Alpha was taking him away from Rumlow, it was because some other Alpha wanted Tony for reasons of his own. Probably nefarious reasons.

Tony couldn’t quite bring himself to feel anything more than a sting of panic over it. If it was some other Alpha, and he was about to be mated by someone he didn’t even know, was that better, or worse, than being forced by someone he did know and didn’t like?

***

Tony woke up almost entirely as expected. Laying in a fucking _nest_ somewhere, with a heavy, hairy, naked person curled on top of him. That he was also naked wasn’t even a shock. It was almost so expected as to be fucking cliche.

The fact that the warm person smelled like a lightly toasted s’more, and was actually sort of comfortable and pleasant didn’t take away from the fact that Tony was naked. With an Alpha. Whose name he didn’t even know.

Tony took a mental inventory. Sans pants, he really would have expected his bits to be sore; someone divesting Tony of the burdens of virginity in a heat-induced rut wasn’t someone Tony expected to be _gentle_.

He was thirsty as hell; his jaw clicked as he swallowed, trying to work up a little bit of spit. He was going to have to try to get out from under the unknown Alpha, and without waking him was likely to be tricky.

Tony squirmed.

Yeah, tricky was a word.

The Alpha made a sleepy sound, stuck a cold nose in the skin at Tony’s throat. Tony flinched away from that frigid skin. Where the hell were they, anyway?

It was still dark. Tony wasn’t sure if he’d slept (being abducted wasn’t good for his time sense) long enough to have slept the day around. Probably not. He was thirsty, a little hungry, and he had to pee, but none of those things were so urgent as to indicate that he’d lost more than eight hours.

Despite that, there was moonlight streaming in through a nearby window, and the flicker of what might have been a dying fire nearby. A log cabin in the woods. How romantic. Tony thought he might swoon. Sarcastically, of course.

Tony tried subtle. It didn’t work. The Alpha laying on him weighed a ton. When that didn’t work, Tony tried wriggling and squirming and shoving. That didn’t work either. This guy had a serious case of the Monday mornings. Either that, or he’d worn himself out working Tony over while he was sleeping.

Which still didn’t make sense, because even if he was super, super gentle and kind, Tony was pretty sure he’d feel differently if he’d been taking someone’s knot in his sleep.

Sore. Sore-er, if that was a word. Because really, he was almost totally awake know and the various muscles he owned (they weren’t impressive and there weren’t very many of them, but he did have them. A bit.) were complaining.

The Alpha nuzzled at him, nose going by instinct to the crook of Tony’s neck where the secondary sex glands were, the smelly little bastards that had been making his life difficult since he was twelve years old.

And then the Alpha licked Tony’s neck.

Oh, gross, oh god, oh, yuck. Tony pushed, shoved, squirmed backward frantically. “No, no, no, no,” he complained. The Alpha was mostly unmoved.

Mostly.

He opened one light colored eye. “Hmmm?” Blinked a few times, sleepily. Gazed at Tony with infinite tenderness.

Those eyes were as silver as moonlight, wide and almost glowing and Tony’s breath caught in his throat, the whiff of Alpha hormones making him dizzy, lightheaded, hungry and horny all at once.

Inconvenient.

He was about to get pounded, Tony just knew it.

“Uh…” Tony managed. “Thirsty?” Please, please, please could he have a drink of water because being bent over, please?

He didn’t say any of that, bit down on it fiercely, in fact.

“Yeah, k,” the Alpha said. He stretched, rolled off. Sat up, showing off an absolutely ridiculous amount of muscular back and wide arms and broad shoulders. Scars. And a silver limb from the shoulder down that whined and shifted as he moved, some sort of high tech prosthetic. How had Tony not noticed laying on that? But it did explain why the guy was immovable as a truck. That thing had to weigh a ton.

“Oh, hey, wow, that--”

Tony stopped talking because the guy stood up.

Stood up and he was as naked as possible.

Naked and showing off the sort of ass that would make a werewolf howl, talk about a _full moon,_ oh, dear god.

Tony choked.

The only reason, Tony told himself later, that he didn’t flee for the fucking hills as soon as the moon god was out of the bed was because Tony was also starkers, and running with his dick swinging just didn’t seem very comfortable.

It wasn’t at all so that he could check out the way the Alpha’s thighs moved, the way his hips swung, the way Tony could just catch a glimpse of round and dangling balls. The way he wanted the Alpha to turn around and strut right back to Tony, bare and on full display.

_Hoooooly shit._

The Alpha crossed the room, dragged a bottle of something out of an old-fashioned ice chest. “Here,” he said, bringing the bottle back. Tony forewent getting a sneak peek in favor of making grabby hands at the bottle of window cleaner blue sports drink. He was so damn thirsty that his jaw clicked with every swallow and he was all but mewling with need by the time the bottle ran dry.

“Easy,” the Alpha said, trying to tip the bottle back down. Tony jerked to one side to continue guzzling. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I ain’t… I’m gonna take care of you, you don’t have to worry.”

A spurt of blue drink dripped out of Tony’s mouth and down his chest. Take care of you. “Yeah, okay, that’s real reassuring there, dude. Take care of me and then _take care of me_. Yeah, I feel so much better.”

There was a quick flash of teeth in the semi-darkness. “We have more problems than you can shake sarcasm at, Omega,” the Alpha said, and the way that deep voice caressed the words absolutely did not send a shiver down Tony’s spine.

“I don’t know about that,” Tony said. “I got a lot of sarcasm.”

“So I’m gatherin’,” the Alpha said.

“So, why don’t you tell me what these problems are, I’ll tell you why they’re not problems, and you can just let me go,” Tony said. That wasn’t going to happen, Tony knew that already. Alphas who thought that Omegas had problems (and wasn’t that all of them, all the time, from you broke a pretty little nail all the way to you need a knot, baby, that’s all) were compelled to solve them. Usually in such a manner than benefitted the Omega not at all, but hey, it’s not like they counted as real people or anything.

“Heh, whatever you say, sugar,” the Alpha said. “Guess we’ll start with th’ biggest and work our way down. You’re--” he jammed a finger in Tony’s direction “--in heat.”

“Happens I knew that,” Tony said. “Unexpected and early, but no--”

“Don’t say no big deal, because I ain’t talkin’ heat markers, or startin’, or need t’ take a day off. I mean that jackass bit you, and you’re going to go full rut in like twelve hours. Ain’t you hungry, thirsty, an’ needin’ to nest up?”

Of course he was hungry and thirsty, Tony had just-- wait, what?

“Wait, _what_?” He reached for the back of his neck.

“Do not do that,” the Alpha said. “It’s swollen so bad I can see it from here, an’ if you don’t want to hurry up this onset, you don’t puncture it.”

Tony glared, then very, very gingerly reached for his scent glands, light fingered and hesitant. He could feel the heat off his skin before his fingertips even encountered the swelling, like a blister, at the base of his skull. “Rumlow bit me?”

“I guess, if that’s his name,” the Alpha said. “You weren’t conscious, an’ even if that was your Alpha, I don’t ‘prove of that. He coulda waited, an’... if I was wrong, he’s still skulkin’ out there in th’ wood and I’ll--”

“No, you weren’t wrong. He… I don’t want him. He doesn’t want me either, really, I don’t know what the fuck this is about, but. Rumlow’s not my Alpha.”

“Probably some sort of teenage bullshit proving thing,” the Alpha said. “Back in my time, people called it tag-mating, and it was just as traumatic as it is now. No one talks about it, so no one knows about it. It’s bullshit. It’s rape. I ain’t… I ain’t gonna do that to you, kid.”

“You don’t have to call me kid,” Tony protested. “I’m a full grown omega, legally an adult. I’ve got a name. I know even how to spell it.”

“Oh, I am _impressed_ ,” the Alpha said, his voice dripping with cynicism. “You gonna share it with me, or just brag about it?”

“Tony,” Tony said, sullen. “Tee-oh-en-why. Tony Stark.”

Well, that seemed to jolt something through the wayward Alpha, then he shook it off. “Bucky Barnes,” he said. “I ain’t gonna spell it out for ya, genius.”

“Okay, so Rumlow bit me and I’m about to go into my first official heat-rut. With an Alpha I don’t even know.”

Bucky shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not unskilled,” he said. “I won’t-- hurt you, or nothin’.”

“Yeah, no, no, I don’t think we’re going to be doing that,” Tony said, because he was pushing, he was still pushing. He wanted to know where the damn line was, where this Bucky was going to push back. Because honestly, it he was going to get fucked, Tony would just sort of like to get it over with. The anticipation was killer.

Bucky whirled on him, almost as if he’d heard that, and Tony promptly changed his mind, because Bucky was looking at him with _intent_ , and Tony would take anticipation, oh, god, please… no…

“Okay,” Bucky said. “No riding through the storm, that’s okay. So, I take you home, you ride it through on your own with whatever toys and devices you’ve got set aside. You have kinda a miserable time of it, but your honor’s your own and we’ll all good.”

Tony inhaled.

He did not have toys and devices, Howard didn’t approve of that sort of stuff with the kind of fervent anti-biological hysteria that most beta males seemed to take on. He would _suffer_ , and Howard would be around, probably crowing about how weak Tony was while he suffered.

“Uh…”

“Beta parents?”

“My dad is,” Tony said. “Mom’s a ‘mega. Was a bit of a coup for Dad, getting her to agree to the mating.”

“Poor bitch,” Bucky said, and Tony bristled. Alpha Bucky might be, but that was still uncalled for.

“She’s--”

Bucky flicked his fingers. “Sorry. Just can’t imagine going through enough of a rut-heat with a beta, especially one that got someone pregnant. Your dad’s gotta be something else.”

That was one word for it. Tony squirmed a bit, feeling a little loose in the muscle area around his backside. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t really want to talk about my parents’ sex life when I’m getting ready to have a _rut-heat_.”

Biology sucked. That was as simple as it was. And this was a problem. That Tony didn’t think he was going to be able to just think his way out of. Biology was _fact_.

“So, the choices are, go with you, go home, go with Rumlow?”

Bucky shrugged. He got another bottle of gatorade for Tony and handed it off, which Tony drank without thinking about it. “If there’s someone else you like, that you want, or a service, I can arrange it,” Bucky said.

Tony swallowed sideways, his throat aching. “So, you’d just, what, whore me out?”

“You are determined to take offense at everything I say,” Bucky said. “Are you always this charming, or is it a side effect of being scared?”

“I’m not _scared_.”

“Then what is it?”

Tony sighed and curled into the blankets on Bucky’s bed. He wasn’t scared. It wasn’t fear. It was just… “I don’t like my choices,” he said. “And I don’t like that I woke up naked with you and I don’t even know you, and you don’t seem to want me any more than they did, and I know I shouldn’t complain about that, but it’s just weird and none of this makes any sense.”

“Scared is faster,” Bucky said. “Easier to spell, too.”

“Asshole,” Tony muttered.

“Yes,” Bucky said. “That, too.” He sighed and sat down on the bed near Tony. The dip as he sat made Tony want to curl into it, push his arms around the man and bury his face in that vulnerable belly. “Look, you woke up naked because you were filthy, I only have one set of sheets, and I wanted you to be safe and warm, not covered in mud. There’s nothin’ sinister about that, an’ I’m sorry you feel like I was… takin’ advantage. I’m tryin’ real hard not to, ‘cause dollface, if you think I don’t want you, you’re real damn wrong about that. You’re-- pretty as hell an’ you smell fantastic, an’ it’s been a long damn time since I held anyone in my arm an’ felt anything real. So, if you’re feelin’ rejected, honey, don’t. I’m not doin’ that. Just tryin’ not to make you… what happened happened. Biology… sucks, an’ it can be real demanding. But I don’t have to be demanding.” Bucky was absently petting Tony’s hair as he talked, quiet and soothing and comforting. “I don’t have to do nothin’ that you don’t want. But I am gonna say, biology makes us all her bitch, and if you don’t want me, we better do somethin’ about you an’ this situation real quick-like, because this… you not wanting me. That ain’t gonna last, kid.”

Tony knew that. He knew that as much as he knew anything about being an Omega. That his lust would overpower pretty much every rational thought, that he’d be begging for an Alpha, even Rumlow.

Ug. _Disgusting_.

Tony’s lip curled up.

Tony sighed, then opened his mouth and gave voice to his doubt. He didn’t want to doubt, he wanted to be strong, he wanted to have a plan, he wanted to not be what he fucking was. “What do we do?”

“S’far as I can tell, we got two choices,” Bucky said. “You an’ I sign a temporary mating form, give us, what, say… six months, that’s the standard short. I take you through this heat, an’ maybe the next one if you pop again quick, although most people don’t after their first real heats. It’ll be a year or more, at least, til you gotta worry about it again. I’m on the hook for any pregnancy, if you get pregnant, and you don’t get a black mark on your reputation for slutting it up.”

“That’s option one,” Tony said. He didn’t really want to consider a temporary arrangement. Like all omegas -- like everyone, really -- he did sort of dream about love. A happy marriage, even if he’d never had any opportunity to see one, and the ones on the television sitcoms, while maybe some less with the hitting and yelling at Howard and Maria’s marriage had, were still not really something Tony wanted.

When he wanted anything at all, that wasn’t being able to build computers and being left alone. Tony eyed Bucky. Would Bucky leave him alone, or would he expect a lot out of Tony for the course of the mating, even a temporary, short term bond?

“Option two is let me call your parents -- and honestly, I should do that anyway -- or a friend that can take you through this heat, and that right quick now.”

Tony sighed. He considered it. “What-- aside from the obvious fucking me--” Tony coughed to a halt, swallowed, tried again. “What other obligations am I gonna have?”

Bucky shrugged. “Nothin’ that you don’t want. I mean, you cook?”

Tony snorted. “I order damn good pizza,” he said.

“You’re my kinda omega,” Bucky said. “I like pizza. But no, honey, I don’t want a cook or cleaner, or nothin’. Ain’t asking for you to take care of me. I mean, you’ll be my omega for six months, you’ll kinda have to stay here, but I can take you to school, all that. Whatever you want.”

Tony didn’t believe that, not for a hot damn second, but… could it be worse, to live in a stranger’s house than to live with Howard?

“Okay. We’ll try it your way.”

“Ain’t my way, darlin’,” Bucky said. “Just, the easiest way.”

***

His Omega, his. The refrain sung over and over and Bucky had to bite down on his lip to keep from howling with triumph.

It’d been years since anyone had looked at him as anything other than a complete failure. Missing an arm shouldn’t have implied anything like a loss of his Alpha status; he wasn’t less of an Alpha, less of a man, less of a provider, a lover, a thinker, a fighter, any of it.

And yet his status had slipped so hard it was at the top end of his abilities to drive off a pack of green, not-yet-rutted Alphas who were so busy chasing a scared, skinny Omega that they hadn’t even noticed them until he was on them with a knife.

And now, this precious, adorable Omega was going to bargain with his guardian? Was going to be Bucky’s, let Bucky take him through that first, life-affirming heat. After Bucky had defended his honor?

Bucky would have been overwhelmed and grateful for the attentions of any Omega, or so he told himself. But then he actually saw Tony, smelled him. Talking to him.

He was impressed with Tony’s quick wit, his determination in the face of his fear.

In short, the omega had spirit, and Bucky was fucking smitten.

It wasn’t fair to Tony, Bucky reminded himself, for Bucky to thrust all his shattered hopes and fears onto one terrified omega. He would be careful. He would take care. He would get Tony though this heat as gently, with as much joy, as he knew how to do.

And maybe, maybe, they could talk about the next heat.

And the next one.

Bucky tried not to eavesdrop while his new Omega was speaking on the phone to his father, but he had keen senses even at the best time, and just before protecting his mate wasn’t what Bucky would call his best time.

Eventually, listening to Tony argue with the man, he had to excuse himself. Bucky pulled on a pair of sweats, boots, and a tee, ran a quick perimeter around his cabin. Marked the shit out of his territory. The Amazon guy was going to come soon with food and it had better damn well be a beta delivery dude, because there was no way in hell any Alpha was going to be able to get close to Bucky’s place without having the deep scent of testosterone challenge right up in his fucking snout.

The little pissant Alpha’s scent still wandered around, but Bucky couldn’t find anything newer than a few hours. He’d probably pissed himself and wandered on home. Which was good, Bucky’s instincts were finely honed, and he’d probably kill that potential rapist bastard.

Finally, sure that Tony must have finished speaking with his father, he circled back to his house. It didn’t really matter at this point what the man said, Bucky was going to claim this omega -- _his omega_ \-- regardless.

He’d never seen anything quite like Tony Stark, delicate and beautiful and clumsy and dirty, with his long, callused fingers and his bright, brilliant eyes.

He had to admit, the set up had been romantic as hell, too. Cliched. Even, but fuck, Bucky would take it. Take it and be goddamn grateful.

The fact that it came at the cost of his Omega’s security, that Tony was going to have to feel in any way tentative or hesitant, burned Bucky up inside. He was going to find that pissant, Rumlow, after this was over and put the fear of God into him.

He raced back to the cabin in time to collect the grocery order and he was stowing packages by the time Tony finally came back into the room, one of Bucky’s shirts open over his chest, Bucky’s sweats riding loose on Tony’s hips. He was drenched in Bucky’s scent and it was all Bucky could do not to just drop the box of noodles in his hand and pounce.

“So?”

“What are you doing?”

“Nesting,” Bucky said. “I don’t know what all foods you liked, so I got a variety. Sports drinks and milk and fruits and stuff. You’ll want to eat.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess,” Tony said. He rubbed fitfully at the back of his neck.

Bucky gently untangled Tony’s hand from the bite. “I’ll take care of that in a minute,” he said. “What did your dad say?”

“He said you can fucking keep me, is what Howard said, okay?” Tony burst out. “I guess that stock lost value, now that he can’t promise some virginal omega to one of his damn business partners.”

Bucky took a deep breath and unclenched his fist. “We’ll deal with that, later, okay?” He didn’t know how to soothe Tony over this; it didn’t seem like Tony was upset, so much as angry and insulted.

“We’re dealing with a lot of stuff, later,” Tony pointed out.

“Okay, yeah, I know. Here, let--” he turned Tony gently, looking down at the swollen bite at the back of Tony’s neck. Rumlow’s teeth hadn’t quite broken the skin and let the gland release the hormones that would send Tony right into his rut, but enough of it had leaked out that he smelled divine, like something Bucky wanted to just lick at for _ages_.

“It’s not like fighting over an omega is unprecedented, so I’ll just--”

Tony was shivering under Bucky’s hand.

“Shhhh, shhhh,” Bucky soothed him. “It’s okay, I’m gonna just… take care of you, honey. I promise, it’ll be--”

He lipped at the swollen node, flicking his tongue over it. He could taste the sour-nasty-bitter of the other Alpha and he realized that he was fucking _snarling_ , and he tried to dial it back, he didn’t want to frighten Tony, but--

“Are you _purring_?”

“This from the guy who’s puffed up like a pissed off housecat,” Tony muttered. “Get on with it, the anticipation is killing me.”

Another lick, and then Tony was pushing back into him, seeking that pressure, and Bucky slid a hand up his chest. That rabbit heart beat under Bucky’s palm and Tony was sweet and compliant in his arms, and--

Bucky bit down on the wound, Alpha canines sharp against the skin. The tang of Alpha taint faded away and Bucky was left with honey-sweet and sticky, pure omega fluid in his mouth, like a mouthful of watercress, a lick of pure cane sugar, a gush of minty smoothness… everything delicious and wonderful all at the same time, combined with a potent aphrodisiac.

They both groaned as Bucky sucked at the wound, plied his tongue soft and sure over the gland.

Tony made a noise, some noise, Bucky wasn’t sure what, and then he was writhing around in Bucky’s arms like some sort of crazy dream. He settled against Bucky’s chest and twined his arms around Bucky’s neck, offering his mouth up for kisses. Bucky pushed, shoved, lifted, until Tony was planted on the kitchen countertop. Bucky stepped in the cradle of Tony’s thighs and began a sensual assault on him. He pulled Tony’s lower lip between his teeth, suckled at the plump flesh there, and then thrust his tongue deep into Tony’s willing mouth.

Tony got a grip on the back of Bucky’s neck, fingernails digging in, thrusting his tongue out awkwardly, like Bucky was a cupcake and he was trying to get all the icing. Pleasure jolted through Bucky as Tony whimpered and whined, pushing himself against Bucky’s mouth. The delicious omega taste and smell, mixing with Bucky’s very own taste…

He could taste it every day the rest of his life and never be satisfied, Bucky thought.

His beautiful omega.

_His._

_Dad said you could just keep me._

_Maybe I will_ , Bucky thought, fierce and protective.

“You have-- you have-- you have to claim me,” Tony was whining against Bucky’s throat.

“You’re mine,” Bucky told him, deep and snarling and possessive. “Mine. My omega.” He hitched in a breath, another, rumbled and reached for that command voice that he hardly ever used, a throaty growl, the Alpha voice. Subaudible and at the same time, very, very loud. “ _Mine_.”

Tony made a very soft response to that, almost a mere puff of air against Bucky’s throat. “Yours, Alpha.” He drew back to look up into Bucky’s face. “You needn’t huff and puff and knock the house down. I heard you the first time.” He ran a finger down Bucky’s cheek. “I’m yours.”

 _He is touching me,_ Bucky thought. _He is touching me and he belongs to me._

He hissed and grabbed Tony’s fingers, licking them thoroughly, sucking each digit with abandon. Tony’s eyes widened, and widened further, almost comically shocked.

“That wasn’t what I thought you’d be suck-- shit, Jesus Christ--”

Because Bucky was done with the waiting, he was done with all of that, and he was stripping Tony bare, and then he took all of Tony in a single, slick slide. He was barely even hard, yet, even in pre-heat the body needed some stimulation, and being nervous wasn’t always the best for maintaining an erection. But Tony was getting there fast, hardening inside Bucky’s mouth, against the inside of his cheek. Bucky slid his open, shaking mouth against the length of Tony, encouraging and echoing each low moan and shudder. He sucked and licked and nipped at the succulent flesh, hands moving up to tweak at Tony’s nipples.

Bucky pushed Tony’s legs wide and kept him splayed, ankles going over Bucky’s shoulders. Tony writhed in Bucky’s hold, not fighting to get away, but fighting to stay, fighting to relax, to enjoy it, to feel everything and to be everything. Bucky paused to look his fill of that lean, olive-skinned body, those toned muscles. Tony’s amber eyes were huge and shimmering with desires that he didn’t even understand yet. Just like Bucky craved, had desired in him, and from him.

“Mine, omega, say it,” Bucky demanded, and Tony gasped, whined, and obeyed as Bucky took him down again to the root.

Tony’s long feet curled against Bucky’s back, toes twitching with the onslaught of desire. His heels kicked against Bucky’s shoulder, and one hand was in Bucky’s hair, pulling and directing, even if he was directionless with sensation.

“Yours, yours Alpha,” Tony promised.

Bucky sucked Tony’s cock with as much skill as he could manage, taking the whole length of it down his throat, letting Tony fuck his mouth, using tongue and lips to tempt and tease. Tony propped himself up on one elbow to watch what Bucky was doing to him. Bucky’s dark head, curls tickling at Tony’s thighs, worked him over.

Tony threw back his head with a gasp and came, slick and eager, right down Bucky’s throat. He swallowed, swallowed again and it was so carnal, so intense, that Bucky nearly came himself, untouched. Bucky didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, until every last shiver had been wrung out of Tony’s lithe body.

“Oh, oh, wait--” Tony squirmed back as pleasure gave way to too much, but Bucky wasn’t ready to give it up, not just yet. Bucky lapped at Tony’s dick, then lower, over his twitching balls, and then-- “Oh, christ!”

He found Tony’s hole, laved at it with his tongue until Tony was twitching and squirming helplessly. Bucky pushed one finger against that hole, testing the muscle. Loose, from the oncoming heat, it would hardly be the work of a moment if he hadn’t cared so damn much about Tony’s comfort and joy.

He pulled away, wiped at his chin with his arm.

Tony lolled back on the counter, sprawled and shameless and looking utterly debauched. “Hey, uh… there’s like this slut in your kitchen, totally don’t recognize the guy,” he mumbled. “You might want to, I don’t know, keep him from wrecking the table. Or something.”

“Don’t worry,” Bucky said. “I ain’t plannin’ on lettin’ him get away.”

“You know, if I didn’t feel so utterly at peace with the entire universe,” Tony said, and oh, god it was fucking adorable how high as a kite on hormones he was, “I might resent that. I’m not your property.”

“You ain’t,” Bucky agreed, and he was particularly proud of himself that it came out as a sentence and not a challenge. He didn’t want to challenge Tony, he didn’t want Tony to feel anything that wasn’t proud, good, happy (horny!).

Satisfied. Bucky was a good choice, he was, he was a good Alpha, he was a good provider.

He wanted his Omega to be happy. More than anything, Tony’s unhappiness would be the breaking point.

“So, uh,” Tony said, hopping down from the counter and hastily trying to rearrange his clothing -- Bucky’s clothing -- to cover himself up. That would never do, and Bucky just as hastily started divesting him of it until they were both splendidly naked in the kitchen. “Not the I’m complaining, this is not a complaint _at all,_ but uh… I thought I was supposed to be, you know, servicing you.”

“There’s time, honey,” Bucky said. “You know you’re going to be in heat for like a week, right?”

“Three to five fertile days,” Tony recited.

“Yeah, that’s the base,” Bucky said, and he slowly started leading Tony back toward the bedroom. “When your peak fertility is. But you’ll be at a higher performance rate for up to… ten days. We’re just getting started, honey.”

“Ten…” Tony’s voice spiraled up. “Ten days? I can’t _miss class_ for ten days!”

“I’ll get all your work delivered up here,” Bucky promised. “We can work on it between--”

“Being nailed through the mattress?”

“Something like that. It’s really not as crazy as you’re making it out,” Bucky said. “I mean, you don’t even have to take my knot, if you’re not into it, I won’t-- I ain’t like that.”

“I’m…” Tony hesitated, then followed him all the way into the bedroom. “Confused.”

“You will be fine,” Bucky promised. “It’s not all mindless fucking. I mean, it _can_ be, if you don’t treat it right, and you act like porno is all you ever do. But here’s the thing, like a real fight, Hollywood wants to show you the exciting bits, so they act… but… you can just jerk off a few times a day, make sure you stay hydrated. I’ll bite you once or twice. But the rest of it is just bullshit. We’re not animals, Alphas just act like that, because it gives them an excuse to stuff their knot in whoever they want without consequences.”

Tony was just staring at him. “Then what was that?”

“A blowjob?” Bucky asked. “I mean, it was supposed to feel good, an’ ease up on your hormones a little, but if you didn’t like it, I won--”

“Whatever you’re about to say, just don’t,” Tony said. “I liked it, it was amazing, it was wonderful, it felt incredible, and I will out and out cry if you say you’re not going to do it again, there will be tears, it’ll be ugly, and you don’t want that on your conscious.”

“I don’t,” Bucky agreed. “Come on, let’s just lay down a bit. You’ve got time before your body’s going to get pushy again.”

“What about your body?”

Bucky barely spared a glance for his battered and marked up body, preferring to appreciate Tony’s delicate, innate grace. “I’m fine, I--”

“Are we together, or not?” Tony demanded, crossing his arms over his chest, which looked ridiculous on anyone, especially if they were naked. Bucky chewed on his lip again. It wouldn’t do to be _caught_ finding his omega utterly adorable.

No one -- not even an omega -- appreciated being compared to a baby rabbit.

Not even an omega who was as adorable as a baby rabbit.

Not, really, that Tony was -- he was pretty damn fierce, honestly.

“We’re together,” Bucky said, not quite sure where Tony was going with this.

“Then --” Tony took an aggressive step into Bucky’s personal space “-- if we’re together --” step, and he was poking Bucky in the chest with a hard finger “we’re _together_ , and I’m going to have all of it. A proper rut-heat, an Alpha who acts like he wants me, and I’m going to take a goddamn knot, and if I get pregnant, that’s fucking great!”

Bucky blinked. “Are you getting carried away?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, then,” Bucky said. “Let’s back off the babies and getting window dressings for just a minute?”

“You don’t want babies?”

“I met you _five hours ago,_ ” Bucky protested. “This isn’t a Disney movie, princess. Babies are expensive.”

Tony blinked at him. “You really don’t know who I am, do you? I’m Tony Stark. Stark Industries? Like, richest omega on this side of the pond? No matter what my dad says, it’s not going to be that easy for him to get rid of me. You’re… Alpha, you’re on easy street, no matter what happens now.”

Bucky blinked back. They probably looked like a matched set of barn owls. “Oh. Uh. Still, dial it back, buttercup.”

“No,” Tony said. “Richest omega or not, I rarely get what I want, so for once, I just want to want something and I want someone to give it to me, and you’re fucking elected. So--”

Fine, _fine_. Consent, enthusiastic, even, obtained.

Bucky crushed his omega to his chest, wrapped that steel arm around him to hold him in place and kissed Tony like it was the last thing he was ever going to do. Knowing that he still tasted like Tony’s semen, knowing that he tasted like Tony’s omega fluids. Thrust his tongue in, over and over, mimicking the coupling that his body was aching for. (He was straight up lying that he could get through a whole mating cycle without at least desperately wanting to knot, even if he didn’t _have_ to, he fucking wanted to. God, of course he _wanted_ to, he was enlightened and kind, not made from stone.)

Tony practically pushed him into the bedroom, scrambled onto the bed. “I know you say it’s not that urgent, Alpha,” Tony said, whining as his breath pushed in and out of his nose, “but it is, it is, it _is_.” He made a throat sound, his hot amber gaze flashing as he focused on Bucky’s face. He propped himself up on the pillows, presenting, and if it was true that it wasn’t a need, just a biological compulsion, Bucky lost that thread.

Tony’s ass, ripe and pink and round and perfect, was the most delectable thing Bucky had ever seen and he wanted-- he wanted. Dear Christ. He tested the muscle again, tight and firm. He got the lube; he’d at least thought to order it, along with high calorie, easy prep foods, electrolyte drinks, fuzzy blankets, and everything else he could think of for a quick delivery, because lube wasn’t something that an unwanted Alpha really kept on hand at all.

He wet his fingers, and rather than go gentle, he pushed two fingers straight into Tony’s hole, twisting as soon as Tony opened his mouth to gasp.

“There you go, honey,” Bucky said, and if there was an edge of teasing in his voice, he didn’t care.

Tony pushed back into Bucky’s fingers, the tendons of his neck distended as a thin, breathless scream broke out of him. He was completely taken over by the sensations that Bucky was wringing out of him, begging and mewling incoherently, bunching the pillows under his chest to squeeze and knead at them.

Bucky didn’t show any mercy, kept fingering him open, tugging at the rim, twisting his fingers, scissoring them out relentlessly. Inside, he found that little nodule of Tony’s, worked it recklessly as Tony clenched and bore down on him.

It was bliss and perfection. It was more than he deserved. It was more than he even thought he needed, more than he was sure he could handle, and all he could do was keep doing it, listening to the words spill out of Tony’s throat, alpha, alpha, alpha, please, more now… Tony was sobbing the words, eyes squinched shut, tears leaking from the corner, and somehow, Bucky knew, he knew, everything was fine, everything was going to be fine.

He wrung another climax out of Tony, letting him spill onto the blankets, before he finally pulled back and away, crawling onto the bed after his sweet omega. Bucky’s breath was harsh as he bent over Tony’s body, slick with sweat, cool and fever hot at the same time.

Tony was splendidly omega male, long lines, almost too thin, but flat and perfect and sweet. Trembling under Bucky, like Bucky was something special. “Come on,” Tony begged, “I’m… I’m ready, Alpha, ready, please.”

With that, Bucky went batshit crazy. He couldn’t wait any longer, lined himself up and impaled Tony with one long, hard stroke, taking him all the way to the base in a searing lunge. Tony shrieked in shock, need, pleasure, and probably not a small amount of discomfort. Bucky leaned down, over him, and bit, bit at that bonding gland, the heat fluids spilling into his mouth. Fastened on like a bat and sucked.

He yanked Tony’s hips up to meet him, plunging in with thick, powerful strokes, never letting up with his mouth, setting a brutal pace. He was groaning, growling, with each stroke, with every thrust, like the animal he was, and Tony was pushing back against him, as if Bucky could possibly be forced any deeper, any wider, like the little animal he was. Tony’s hands clenched in the blankets, totally out of control, stretched and arched and wriggled. He reached back with one hand, grabbed Bucky’s thigh, fingernails scrambling for a purchase.

Bucky threw back his head, face contorting with astonished savagery. He bit down, again. With a last, compulsive thrust, he joined Tony in another climax. Muffled sounds of vicious pleasure came out of Tony’s throat and Tony clenched around the length of Bucky’s cock. Bucky’s hands were digging into Tony’s hips, holding him in place, pinning them in that perfect moment. Holding onto sensation, holding on to his omega.

He rocked, one last time, into Tony’s body and felt the inexplicable, unstoppable swelling of his knot and the way it locked in with Tony’s ring of muscle there, joining them together. Holding them fast. Almost gentle. Ah, there you are, yes.

Tony turned his face, gazed with sleepy satisfaction over his shoulder at an Alpha that wasn’t going _anywhere._ Bucky nudged forward as much as he could, kissed Tony’s mouth. It was wet and loose and sloppy and he couldn’t reach nearly as well as he wanted, but it was a kiss.They were fused together, one creature, yin and yang.

Alpha.

And omega.

Tony mumbled something, snuggled into the pillow until his face was flat against the mattress. Sounds liked “wrecked.”

“For a little bit,” Bucky said. He shifted, and they both groaned as their bodies twisted together, unable to break free, but eventually, Bucky got them spooned together on their side. It still wasn’t comfortable, mind, but it was better. Bucky’s knees had seen better days, really.

“Alpha?”

“Yeah, Tony?”

“How long are we stuck like this?”

“A while,” Bucky said. He shifted his hips and dragged Tony backward about an inch. He couldn’t feel any fluid on his thighs, so they were still sealed.

“I’m thirsty,” Tony complained.

“Next time, don’t be in such a hurry, and I’ll get us nested up proper,” Bucky murmured, patting Tony’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, just a few minutes more or so. Try to rest.”

“Next time?” Tony’s voice spiraled up.

“You wanted a knot, you got one,” Bucky said. “We’ll probably do this once or twice a day until the heat wears off.”

“I just came like _five_ times--” Tony squeaked.

“Yeah, you’re amazing,” Bucky said, smug and proud.

“You’re going to kill me,” Tony moaned.

“It’s unlikely,” Bucky said. “It’s all right, honey, just relax. Deep breaths, I’m right here with you--”

A little more talk and soothing, comfort and kissed, and Bucky managed to get them unlocked. Ug, sticky. And sweaty. “Let me get you something to drink, an’ all cleaned up an; food and proper nesting.”

“Okay,” Tony said, waving a hand. “Chocolate milk?”

“Sure, omega, whatever you want.”

Bucky grabbed his sweats, padded out into the kitchen. Brought back a tray and then had to coax Tony to eat and drink. The omega was all but passed out by the time Bucky was cleaning cooling come and sweat off his skin.

My omega. Mine.

He kissed Tony’s forehead. “You sleep, honey,” he said, soft and soothing. “You’ll need all your strength.”

Bucky ate a few roast beef sandwiches while he got the nest set up.

Tony wasn’t the only one who was going to need strength.

Finally, situated, he climbed back into the bed with Tony.

“Alpha,” Tony murmured, and rolled over to snuggle against Bucky’s chest.

“I’m here,” Bucky said.

“I know. It’s… nice. I like it. You being here.”

Bucky swallowed hard, tucking his chin over Tony’s hair. “Good. I’m so glad to hear it.”

“S’eep now,” Tony said, sticking his nose against Bucky’s throat. “You’ll take care of me.”

“As long as you want,” Bucky promised. “Always.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony is dealing with his heat-rut, and Bucky is dealing with the brattiest Omega in the country. At least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more smut really. if that's not your thing, there's really not a lot of plot here. Just aftercare, smut and more aftercare.

Tony woke up from dreaming that a soft, smooth hand was jerking him off while another hand -- he wasn’t even sure if it belonged to the same person, because that one was harder, metallic, was working him open from the other side. A heated body was pressed over him, and--

“Fuck,” Tony muttered. He opened his eyes and there was no one. He mewled, feeling horribly empty, abandoned, alone-- “Alpha!”

“Oh, my god,” someone sighed from the other side of the room. “Calm your tits, I’m jus’--”

“Buuuuuucky,” Tony whined again, remembering that his Alpha had a name, that there was someone who was supposed to be doing these things to him, was supposed to be taking care of this insatiable need, this ache, this hunger.

His stomach rumbled and Tony realized he was both hungry and thirsty at the same time, his ass was empty (but also a little sore, even if he wasn’t going to admit that at the moment) and he stank. Sweat and come and stale food and sour milk and…

“Ug,” Tony complained. He rolled out of the bed and onto the floor, which, ow, mistake, because the floor was hard but oh, nice, it was also a lot cooler than the bed, and he was--

“Tony.”

He managed to look up. A pair of bare feet, trim ankles, slightly knobbly knees, thick, beautiful thighs -- oh, damn, he was wearing boxers, that was a shame. Utterly naked would have been better, because Tony was already on the floor, and he could just reach up. Bucky’s chest was bare as well, showing off a truly ridiculous amount of muscle, scar tissue and the silver and pink lines that surrounded the metal arm -- Tony was not going to speculate on the fact that some of those scars looked more like fingernails digging at the prosthetic trying to get it off in a panic, nope, that thought was going right back into the box where it came from -- and then beautiful shoulders, a graceful throat.

And his Alpha’s face, which was stupidly beautiful. Dark hair was scraped back away from his face into an untidy manbun at the base of his skull, and Bucky was sporting just enough of a long-stubble as to qualify for ax-murderer facial hair.

“You okay?”

“Hooooooot,” Tony said, and he wasn’t sure if he was talking about his internal body temperature, the bed, or his Alpha.

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky said, and he bent over to put a bowl on the floor. “I got you some watermelon.”

“Watermelon?” Tony wondered. That wasn’t typical heat-type food, which was generally touted as either semi-raw steaks, or a lot of chocolate.

“You need to drink, too,” Bucky told him, and he crossed his ankles and then sank into a graceful criss-cross, his knees brushing Tony’s. “So, let’s start with melon and see how you’re feeling?”

“I feel like I need you to sit me in your lap so I can ride you for a while,” Tony said, blunt and honest, because if he’d learned anything in the last two days of heat, Bucky both appreciated honesty, and just saying it made it more likely that he’d get what he wanted than trying to hint around it and be coy.

“Food first,” Bucky said, pointing at the dish, which was more than half-full of square chunks of seedless pink watermelon.

Tony snatched up a piece of melon and shoved it in his mouth resentfully. “I don’t even _like_ watermelon,” he complained, although the mouthful disappeared without him really being aware of it. Another piece, and the another, and before he was even completely cogent, he was drinking the remaining juice out of the bottom of the bowl and licking sticky fingers clean.

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said. “Now how are you feeling?”

“Still hungry,” Tony said, although that had eased up some. “An’ still, like, super, super want--” He decided not to bother finishing the sentence, just got onto his knees and crawled over to his Alpha, spreading his thighs over Bucky’s lap and flexing his hips.

Bucky groaned. “The floor, Tony? Some of us are _old_.” But he was getting hard under Tony’s ass, and really, that’s all Tony’s ass cared about. The rest of him might feel self-conscious in a day or so, mortified even, by how desperate and needy and fucking horny he’d been, but right now, what he wanted was those boxers out of the way, and--

“Yeah, okay, that’s… just right, honey,” Tony said, and he pushed Bucky over, putting his palms on Bucky’s chest to balance himself, grinding down.

Bucky groaned, and gave in, his knees going flat, and his hands creeping up to grip Tony’s thighs. “Such an eager little thing,” he said, and while the words came out sounding a little bit condescending, there was a glow in Bucky’s eyes and a tiny little smile around his mouth that said _mine, mine, mine_.

“ _Your_ eager little omega,” Tony corrected, and that was exactly right, perfect.

Bucky growled, and he flipped them over, his mouth coming down to ravish at Tony’s, nipping at his lower lip, thrusting his tongue inside roughly. Tony’s hips rolled up, and he hooked one leg over Bucky’s hip to pull himself even closer.

Whatever Bucky had said about making choices, and autonomy, and not being animals, he’d surrendered to the heat with as much enthusiasm as Tony could have wanted.

Despite that, Bucky was tender and sweet, and there were times when he just stared at Tony, like he’d never seen anything so lovely. Which was bullshit. Tony wasn’t quite the antithesis of an omega -- he was short, at least -- but he wasn’t graceful, or nubile, or curvy and soft, or any of those things. He had to wear a shitton of eyeliner to get his eyes to look the slightest bit liquid and dewy, and his hair was a mess, rather than soft and bouncy, and his lips, don’t even get Tony started on his mouth, which was wide and obnoxious, and seemed to always be in motion, even when he wasn’t talking.

He’d had all his features listed in order, with an addendum of being completely un-omega-like.

Except his ass. Everyone said that his ass almost made up for the rest of his shortcomings.

“Little minx,” Bucky was saying, and then he bit down on the soft side of Tony’s throat, sucking roughly at the skin just over Tony’s collarbone. It hurt, but in the best way, knowing that his Alpha was marking him. When his heat was over, Tony might be able to work up some resentment about it, that Bucky had left a fucking collar of hickeys all the way around, but right now, it just made him feel hot, hot in a good way, hot like burning, hot, so hot.

“Bucky, please!” Tony was begging, and he wasn’t sure when Bucky’d gotten his drawers off, but that heavy, thick cock was pressing at Tony’s entrance eagerly, and Tony squirmed, trying to line them up.

“Hang on, Tony, ha--”

“No.” Tony arched up, wrapped both legs around Bucky’s hips and yanked his Alpha down, impaling himself on that perfect length, which-- oh, ow, okay, maybe, _maybe_ he should have waited, maybe he needed, nope, nope, nope, the rest of his body caught up with his abused, somewhat puffy rim, and he was rocking himself onto it, not caring anymore about the slight sting, the way his body felt overused and achy.

Tony chased pleasure. He rubbed his own dick, somewhat less impressive than Bucky’s, but that was okay, it worked just fine, thanks, against Bucky’s belly. There was a twist of hair there, just under Bucky’s navel, and it felt tickly and sweet against the head of Tony’s cock, a barely-there caress.

Each stroke was met with Tony’s nails digging into Bucky’s shoulders, each slide was met with Bucky’s breath, a soft, sweet moan, and Bucky’s mouth coming down on his, until everything that was part of Tony was given over to his Alpha, and everything that was Bucky’s was taken by his omega, and they were blended so thoroughly that Tony couldn’t figure out what was him, and what was Bucky anymore. They were a bundle of nerves and sensations and heat and sweat.

Bucky groaned. “Deeper, need,” he said, and he shifted, hooking one of Tony’s knees, practically bending Tony in half like a folding chair. The muscle in Tony’s thigh protested, but then, oh, god, that was just exactly perfect. The head of Bucky’s cock rubbed against Tony’s prostate, and Bucky was even closer, his chest against Tony’s. They rubbed together, slick and sweaty, skin to skin, and okay, yeah, there was some chafing there, but Tony didn’t care, he--

“Oh, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” Tony yelled. He was close, so close. His balls pulled up, tightened. He squeezed, clenching down on Bucky’s cock, whining rhythmically. His breath was pushed out of him in hard jolts as Bucky moved, slamming into him over and over.

“Tryin’, omega,” Bucky said into his ear, and then his tongue was in Tony’s ear, hot breath against his cheek, and teeth nibbled his lobe. “Beautiful, give it to me.”

Tony wailed as he came, spilling against Bucky’s stomach, painting his chest with it. Where the fuck did his body produce and store all of it, Tony wondered as his brain checked out on the nice happy chemicals.

He swore he could feel Bucky’s dick inside him, thickening and then-- oh, that was perfect, yes, perfect, as the base of Bucky’s cock swelled, knotted, and the ring of muscle at Tony’s rim locked in place. Bucky groaned, and then practically collapsed, squashing Tony into the floor, which really… wasn’t very comfortable.

And the floor was cold. And Tony was still sweaty, but rapidly cooling off.

“Ug,” Tony complained, “this was not my best thought out plan.”

Bucky propped himself up on his elbow, most of his weight still on Tony’s thighs and hips. “You think?”

“I should totally make a ‘bot,” Tony mused, “that can just roll over here and bring me something to eat, an’ a blanket, and a glass of water.”

Bucky stretched his arm out, then made a face. “Can’t quite reach th’ water from here,” he said. “Hang on.”

And before Tony was really sure what Bucky meant for him to hang on to, exactly, he’d scooted them about three inches across the floor toward the bedside table. Tony was pretty sure his back and thighs had just picked up quite a bit of dust and floor dirt, not to mention the fact that he felt like his ass had been _sandpapered_. And he was just about to mention all that when Bucky wiggled the water bottle, sending a slosh over the lip and onto Tony’s chest, but still, water, oh, god.

Tony made grabby hands, practically headbutted Bucky in the chin, and managed to drink about half the water in a single, overly large gulp.

“Sleep, now,” Tony said, capping the bottle and shoving it aside.

“No,” Bucky responded. “No. I’m not sleeping on my hands and knees on the fucking floor. You can stay awake long enough for me to unknot, and then we’ll get back in the bed, like some of us have some sense around here.”

“Mean,” Tony said, yawning. He snuggled into Bucky’s body heat, nose stuck in Bucky’s neck where he could smell all those wonderful pheromones.

“Practical,” Bucky said, but he was petting Tony’s hair soothingly. “If I throw my back out like this, I ain’t gonna be use t’ you at all.”

“Unknot faster,” Tony told him, but his eyes were closed, and the floor wasn’t the best surface in the world, but…

“No sleeping, Tony,” Bucky said, shaking him. “Come on, like, five minutes, give it five minutes, an’ then, ain’t you hungry?”

“Nope,” Tony denied, although he kinda _was_. Watermelon wasn’t many calories, and maybe a sandwich wouldn’t go amiss, but… he yawned, and then glared at Bucky through slitted eyes when Bucky shook him again.

“You cannot just fuck an’ sleep,” Bucky told him.

“Watch me,” Tony dared. “You’re squishing me.”

“Brat,” Bucky said. “Come on, stay awake. Just a few more minutes.”

Tony hooked his legs over Bucky’s hips. It didn’t do much for the hardness of the floorboards, or even for the weight of Bucky over his thighs, but it did ease the pressure of the knot a little bit. “You can carry me.”

“No, I cannot,” Bucky told him. “Just relax, sweetheart. Take a few deep breaths.”

“Gonna fall asleep,” Tony said.

“No, you’re… breathe, Tony. In….”

Tony whined, and then did what Bucky said. At least that part, he thought, was normal. He still didn’t follow orders, Alpha or no Alpha, heat or no heat. Brat, Bucky had called him and that was true, he was absolutely being a brat.

Part of it was because he was tired and hungry and sexed out, but still wanting more, even when he didn’t want more, and it was kinda pissing him off, and while it wasn’t Bucky’s fault, who else was he going to take it out on.

The other part was trying to make sure that having a heat and an Alpha hadn’t… changed some fundamental part of who Tony Stark _was_.

“Another breath, come on, Tony, nice and deep and let it out slooooowly--”

Oh, oh, there, there, oh, holy crap, what the hell was Bucky doing to him? Everything stretched and twisted, and Tony arched back until he felt like he was going to rub the top of his head right off against the floor, because Christ that--

He screamed and came, but Bucky’s knot pulled free at the last minute, making an obscene popping noise as they seperated.

“Holy, holy, fucking shit, what the absolute--”

“Shhh, shhhh, it’s okay,” Bucky told him, patting him soothingly as Tony shook and trembled and then Bucky was scooping him up and he was tucked against that broad, naked chest, and they were both slick with sweat and come. “Come on, let’s…”

He took Tony into a ridiculously oversized bathroom, and Tony had seen double showers and chin deep jetted tubs before, so it wasn’t like it was new or anything, but he wasn’t sure why Bucky had one, in a cabin, in the woods.

“Physical therapy,” Bucky said, flexing metal fingers against Tony’s thigh. “Do you think you can sit up for a minute while I fill th’ tub, or do you just want me to shower with you?”

Tony eyed the tub with undisguised longing. “I think I can sit up, for a bit,” he said. He meant to, at least, and Bucky got the spigot on, tested the water, and Tony was leaning in the corner, eyes drifting shut despite his best intentions.

Bucky got him into the tub, and oh, oh, the water was nice, warm and soothing and Tony hadn’t realized how filthy he was, or how sore his muscles were and-- “the hell?”

“It’s a seatbelt,” Bucky said, easily, clipping it under Tony’s arms. “I useta fall asleep in the bath sometimes, an’ drownin’ ain’t ‘xactly fun. Just… relax honey, I’ll be right back.”

When Bucky pressed a cold glass of juice to Tony’s mouth, he drank it, and then another, and let Bucky feed him bits of cheese, fruit, a few slices of roast beef, all while in the bathtub, which felt both lazy and decadent.

“You’re _wonderful_ ,” Tony mumbled. “Think I’ll keep you.” Which, he knew, was not how the world worked. Alphas picked their omegas, Alphas signed or refused contracts. It was an Alphas world, and Tony just… lived in it.

Which kinda sucked, and there was a sudden ache in Tony’s chest that Bucky might decide he didn’t want Tony after all, because Tony was a brat, Tony was difficult, Tony was--

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Bucky was saying, and he’d gotten one hand on Tony’s arm, the food forgotten. “What, what, shhh, honey, you’re okay, I’m right here, I’m right here. What, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t--” Tony choked out, his voice breaking. “Don’t leave me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t--”

“Hey. Hey, open your eyes and look at me, baby,” Bucky told him, and it was the hardest thing that Tony had ever done, opening his eyes and looking at his Alpha, and he could no more have disobeyed Bucky in that moment than he could have stopped the tide. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here, right here for you, as long as you want me, okay? Promise.”

“You promise,” Tony repeated, and he was all but sobbing, hiccuping, hands on Bucky’s arms, trying to hold him there, and fuck, what the hell was wrong with him, he was acting--

“Like an omega in heat, honey,” Bucky told him. “Overly emotional is not entirely unheard of. Usually it’s not crying, but that’s okay. I’m right here. Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

“Uggggg.” Why was he like this? No wonder no one wanted him. He was a mess, he wasn’t even a hot mess, which would imply that he was at least a little bit attractive, he was just a mess, a miserable ball of nerves and feelings, tied together and trying to pretend to be a human being. Three emotions in a trench coat.

Tony giggled, a little, not quite but bordering on hysterics.

Bucky wrapped him up in a towel and drew him back toward the bedroom. “I gotcha, honey. Come on, come here, let’s just… yeah, lay right there. Look, look here, this--” Something cold and metal was pushed into Tony’s hand. “Look, this is--”

Tony managed to look at the thing in his palm. “It’s a charger.”

“For my arm. It’s a specialized piece of equipment,” Bucky told him. “So you sleep, an’ if you wake up and I’m not immediately right here, you’ll have that, and you’ll know I can’t get far without it, so I’ll come back for you, okay?”

“Most people give engagement rings,” Tony mumbled, but he tucked his fingers closed around the device anyway.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bucky told him, kissed his forehead. “It’s okay now. It’s okay. I gotcha.”

Tony shuddered a few more times, a little embarrassed by his outburst, and a little annoyed because he was sniffly and his nose was clogged up and that was making it hard to breathe in Bucky’s pheromones, and he missed that comfort, but Bucky was petting him, and snuggling, and Tony had the cable’s plug in his hand and the cable itself wrapped around his wrist, and everything was okay.

And Bucky was humming under his breath.

Tony slept.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some discussion of Bucky as an amputee and suicide  
> and more smut

Tony stuffed his hand down into the bottom of the box of cheerios, digging around before coming up with a scant handful and more dust than, really, Bucky wanted in his bed.

“I’m starving,” Tony complained.

“I know,” Bucky said. He checked his phone. “Delivery for groceries in another hour and twenty minutes, you won’t die before then, I promise.” He had not, honestly, stocked his cabin well for a heat-rut with an omega. Certainly not one as young as Tony. They’d gone through close to five days worth of heat, and more food than Bucky would have thought.

“Mmmm,” Tony said. He tipped the box up and shook the rest of it into his mouth, crumbs and dust and all. If cereal boxes still contained a toy, Tony probably would have eaten that, too. Which represented the last of their food until the grocery order arrived. “Distract me.”

“What, you want to play Twenty Questions or something?” Bucky asked. Mostly his home entertainment came from working out, long walks in the woods, and reading. None of those things were going to distract an omega. Not to mention the fact that neither of them had clothes on. He’d already told the grocery delivery guy to leave the food on the front stoop, ring the bell, and go away.

At least they were clean. Bucky’d been able to lure Tony in for a shower at least once every other day, so they weren’t quite as gross as they could have been for a rutting pair.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Tony said, crawling across the bed with intent. Each movement was about as seductive as it could get, and if Bucky hadn’t spent the last several days fucking as often as he was able to get it up, he might have been quite a bit more interested. Tony was goddamn beautiful, and he was Bucky’s (at least for now) and he was sweet and responsive. “But probably not entirely a bad idea.” Tony draped himself around Bucky like a koala. “I don’t really know much about you.”

“Sure, great, hit me,” Bucky said, quietly thanking god in the darker corners of his mind, because Tony was perfect and lovely and Bucky wanted him, and wanted him to be happy. But his dick was getting sore, his knees hurt like hell, and he kinda just wanted to cuddle.

A bit. After lunch, maybe, he’d be up for another romp, but he’d let his omega eat the last of the food, too.

“Um… Where’d you get a name like Bucky?”

Softball question. “My full name’s James Buchanan Barnes, and there were like two Jims and another James in the neighborhood where I lived, so my best friend decided to call me Bucky, and it just stuck.”

They went through some of those, a little bit of family and work history -- Bucky talked about his Ma and his sister. His best friend, Steve, another Alpha, who was bonded with his former boss. (That had been awkward and gotten both of them in a lot of trouble, but they’d made it work, eventually.)

But finally, they had to get down to it. Bucky’d known that eventually Tony would ask; someone would ask.

“What happened to--”

“Yeah, my arm,” Bucky said. He sighed. “I’m former military, I was with the Howling Commandos.”

Tony’s eyes went wide. “Wow, really, they’re like, heroes,” he said. “I mean, everyone studies them in history class.”

Bucky rubbed at the prosthetic. “This wasn’t my idea,” he said. “I was captured, my-- I mean, I lost the arm during the firefight, but--”

It was hard to talk about. Being killed in action was one thing, a hero’s ending, but being maimed, captured, tortured, and experimented on… that was…

“Captured.” Tony’s voice dropped.

“Yeah, I know, I heard enough of it when I got back,” Bucky said, bitter. Captured. Surrendering to the enemy, even if he had never, ever--

“Heard enough of what?” Tony asked, suddenly fierce.

Jesus. Tony was going to make him say it? “That I should have killed myself,” Bucky said. “Died with some dignity.”

“The _fuck_ you should,” Tony said, angry. “No, no, you should not have done that. What the hell, even? You… having to endure all that and not giving up? That takes bravery. That’s honorable. Who even says that to people?” Tony was clinging to Bucky like a leach, his heart beating crazy-fast under his skin. “Don’t you even think that. Not _ever_.”

“Obviously, I didn’t,” Bucky said. He might have, if Steve hadn’t been as supportive, but even Steve couldn’t carry him for the rest of Bucky’s life. Steve had his omega, he had children to think of, and Bucky… just wanted to be left alone. Until now. “But you know, people know. They look at me, and they know. I lost a lot of status, couldn’t get an omega to even look at me.”

“Hey.” Tony put his fingers under Bucky’s chin. “ _I’m_ looking at you.”

His throat hurt and his eyes stung and everything inside his gut went melty. “Yeah,” Bucky said, finally, blinking, his voice soft and husky. “You are.”

“Good distraction,” Tony said, depositing a kiss on Bucky’s lower lip. “But now I’m hungry _and_ horny, so--”

“God, you’re gonna kill me,” Bucky groaned.

“You could just lay still and I can ride you,” Tony offered, and his hand was already moving down Bucky’s chest.

“I could roll over,” Bucky countered, “and let you top.”

Tony sucked in a breath, shocked. “What, are you even kidding?”

“Not really, no,” Bucky said. “I mean, the equipment’s all there, I’ve done it that way with some beta guys, and I. I mean, I like it. Still feels good, an’ all. I mean, if that’s not-- forget I said anything.”

“I will absolutely _not_ forget you said that,” Tony told him. “I mean… let’s just be clear here, because, like, this--” Tony’s hands fluttered around a bit. “This is big, huge, you’re --pow-- blowing my mind here. I thought Alphas didn’t do that, because… you know, who the fuck wants to be an omega. I mean, aside from me, because this has been the literal best week ever in my life--”

That was enough to go to Bucky’s head. He squirmed a little under Tony until Tony was straddling him. And that felt pretty good, too, the heat between Tony’s legs, and the way he moved.

“-- seriously, I’m not even exaggerating, best ever,” Tony went on, “and… like, if I didn’t want-slash-need you _in me right now_ I would take you up on that, but-- ha, butt, but. Nevermind, anyway, I mean, we’re bonded, right, for the next six months, we could, you know, uh…”

“Have sex because we wanted to?” Bucky suggested.

Tony snapped his fingers and pointed at Bucky. “Exactly, exactly that, I mean, that’s a thing bonded couples do, right?”

“So I understand,” Bucky said. “You know, I wasn’t a virgin before this, but you’re my first omega. So, you know, we’re kinda still in the working out what we’ll be like, as a couple. After this is… behind us, we could try… dating?”

“Is it really dating if you live together?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, well, good point, you’re right, you’re absolutely right.” Tony was shifting a little, rocking soft but relentless. “Still, Alpha--” that went right to Bucky’s spine and into his groin with a crackle of heat “-- I really, _really_ want you to fuck me, right about now. Can we worry about later, you know, _later_?”

Bucky canted his hips, feeling the movement between them, his hands balanced on Tony’s waist. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

“Have you even seen you, Alpha?” Tony wondered, and then stopped wondering, because he was grinding down on Bucky and the friction and heat, the scent of Tony’s pheromones surrounding them was more than Bucky could take. His brain checked out and the rest of him checked in.

The word echoed around him like a flood of pleasure. Bucky leaned up to claim Tony’s mouth, drew him down. His teeth grazed Tony’s throat, right where the pulse point was, then down to the little gland that produced the scent. _Mine, mine. Oh, Christ, mine._

“Yes, Alpha,” Tony whimpered, encouraging the bite, and Bucky took it. Tony gasped, there was always a little sting, but Bucky’s mouth was full of Tony’s sweet taste, and Tony was all but lost already in the delirium of his heat. Pleasure lanced through him and he couldn’t help but smile as he licked the wound, his saliva sealing it, giving Tony what he needed to help him through the heat.

A flare of his own pain, as his cock hardened and swelled. He was sore, his skin chafed, but he needed, needed, needed his omega, his darling. His Tony. Bucky wanted him, again. And more. One moment he was preoccupied with the physical strain of it, and the next, he was pushing up into Tony’s heat. Bucky would make Tony feel all the glory of it, the magnificent pleasures, the carnal satisfaction. Everything, all of it.

“My omega,” Bucky said, claiming Tony again.

Tony was still slick, but Bucky groped for the lube. No need both of them making the chafing worse. Claimed Tony’s mouth in another searing kiss as he checked, made sure Tony was ready for him.

Tony’s arms went around Bucky’s neck, holding them together, his ass up and presenting for Bucky’s questing fingers. “More, more,” he was whimpering. “I need it, come on.”

Bucky was consumed in the feel of Tony, his heat and his need. Every bit of Bucky, yearning for every bit of Tony. And not just the body, the brilliant mind, that sweet smile, everything. Always.

He let himself believe it, as Tony rocked and wriggled against him, until he was ready. “I got it,” Tony said, batting Bucky’s hand away. “Hold it still for me.”

And just like that, Tony leaned back, showing his entire self off for Bucky’s appreciation as he lifted and got himself positioned just over Bucky’s cock.

All that mattered then was sensation; Tony slid down, one agonizing, perfect inch at a time, slick and tight and hot, so hot. Molten, searing, delicious. “God, the way you look at me,” Tony said.

“Yeah?”

Tony didn’t stop moving, that tempting, perfect slide, the way they rocked together, the way Tony rode Bucky like a horse. “Makes me feel--”

“What, honey?” Bucky raised a hand, stroked down Tony’s body, touching every inch, every place that gave Tony pleasure, and every place in between that gave Bucky pleasure.

“Powerful.”

Bucky grinned. “You are. You are… so fucking amazing.”

“And you want me.”

“Like nothin’ else.”

Bucky tugged gently at one nipple, then the other, watching Tony shift and shiver with it, the way he bit his lip, the way his eyes drifted closed. He was sublime. And he was Bucky’s. They moved faster against each other, push and pull.

He slipped a hand down Tony’s cock, urging him on, wrapping his fingers around it to squeeze. Tony thrust up into Bucky’s fist, crying out. Bucky’s skin ached for Tony’s touch, Tony’s alone. He didn’t think he’d ever seen or felt anything quite so perfect.

They moved in concert, each thrust matched and met until Bucky couldn’t tell where he ended and Tony began. Harmony and bliss. He relished the feel of Tony against him, around him, surrounding him. “Yeah, like that, it’s so… so good.” Tony’s thighs quivered, tightened on Bucky’s hips and he threw back his head, crying out.

The warm splatter of his spend on Bucky’s chest filled him. So possessive, so needy, so wanting. _So loving._

“You’re mine,” Bucky told him. Tony stole his breath, his sanity, his will. Bucky would have given anything, everything he had, for his omega.

One more thrust, and another, and he swelled, feeling it-- “oh, right there.”

His knot, pulsed into being by his orgasm, locked with Tony’s ring of muscle, tight and perfect and wonderful and… he was flying. Everything in him shuddered and shivered and he spent himself in Tony’s body.

 _Together_.

Tony collapsed on him, panting for breath, sticky and sweaty.

Which, of course, was exactly when the doorbell rang.

“At least he’s not waiting for us to sign for it,” Tony slurred. He rolled them over onto their sides, which caused both of them to wince, just a little, as the knot refused to stretch or loosen, and the rest of them did so around it. “Ug, ow.”

“ _Your_ idea, hot stuff,” Bucky reminded him.

“Consider me sufficiently distracted, for now,” Tony said, utterly unapologetic. “You can get up and bring me a sandwich and some chocolate in… oh, ten minutes.”

“Anything you want,” Bucky told him, kissing the tip of Tony’s nose. Those long eyelashes fluttered and then he was gazing into Tony’s eyes.

“You know, I think you might actually mean that,” Tony said. “When you look at me like that.”

***

Tony’s phone rang.

There were only like five people in the world who had his number, and only two of which would probably call him. It was probably not Howard, who had more than likely already written him off as a bad investment, and preferred to yell at Tony in person anyway, where he could grab, or shake, or sometimes slap, Tony. Yelling on the phone gave Tony the option to hang up on him. Which, to be fair, Tony frequently did.

Which meant it was either Rhodey or Pepper.

His Alpha was a motionless lump on the other side of the bed, not even disturbed by the buzzing phone. “M’lo,” Tony mumbled, thumbing the phone without even opening his eyes.

He expected Rhodey’s insults and jeers badly disguising big-brother concern, or Pepper’s rapid-fire patter, but instead what he got was a congenial, “good morning, darling.”

“Mom?” Tony accidentally kicked Bucky in the shoulder as he struggled to right himself and scramble out of the bed. It wasn’t like it was a video call, but there was something weird about talking to his mother while naked and smelling of sex and his Alpha, while laying in bed with selfsame Alpha.

“Congratulations, darling,” Maria said. “Your father saw fit to inform me of your whereabouts and recent mating. I thought I’d wait until the -- ahem, busiest part of your new bonding -- had worn off before I called.”

“Um, thanks, yeah, I guess, thank you,” Tony said. He scrubbed one hand over his hair. Yuck, he thought he had a shower a few days ago, but he wasn’t sure if he remembered to actually wash his hair, or if he just stood under the stream. There was that time in the shower where he was on his knees, blowing his Alpha with enthusiasm, and that was probably not something he should be thinking about while on the phone with _his mom_ during the tail end of his heat.

“Your father didn’t give me many details, darling--” well, of course Howard didn’t, it wasn’t like Howard gave a shit what his son was up to, if it wasn’t aggrandizing Howard, somehow “--so tell me, what’s he like?”

 _I don’t know, mom, but he’s awesome at sex._ No, he should probably not say that, although his mother would probably understand that more than anyone else. Most of the people he would say personal things to were betas. “He’s… very kind,” Tony said. “Makes sure I’m eating, and getting enough hydration. He… takes care of me.”

“Strong Alpha instincts,” Maria said approvingly. “And you? How do you feel about all this? Are you happy, Antonio?”

Tony couldn’t contain a laugh, then choked it off, surprised with himself. Happy? He didn’t know that he’d recognize it. “Ask me again in a few weeks when I’m not riding a hormone high, Mom.”

“I’m sure you made the best choice,” Maria said, oblivious as always. Like Tony had any choice. It could have been worse, so much worse, and Bucky seemed great, while Tony was smelling like biological need and putting out. Would he still be as sweet, attentive, and concerned, when Tony was back to his normal self? Would _Tony_ still be the same when he didn’t need Bucky quite so badly? The stir was back in his belly, a little interest. It wasn’t pressing, and the need to take a shower was rapidly taking precedence. Maybe his heat was finally close to over.

Not that he hadn’t enjoyed it, but-- “What, Mom?”

“I want you to bring him over to dinner,” she said. “I’ll have your things ready to move, for the duration of your contract, but I would like to meet him. It’s possible that he’ll father my grandchildren, and I would like to know more about him. You’ll arrange it, right, Antonio?”

Tony breathed in. Something smelled… off to him. Not Bucky’s wood-fire and marshmallow smell, and not the scent of stale coffee, but something like rust and blood and--

Something nervous slithered down Tony’s spine and pooled in his gut, oily and nauseating. “Mom, I gotta go,” he said. “I’ll let you know about dinner later, okay?”

He hung up without listening to Maria’s farewell.

Sniffed again. The nerves in his belly were accompanied by a flare of heat, aching, and then Tony realized what he was smelling.

Another Alpha.

Tony backed away from the wide windows in the kitchen, trying to act casual, but it was probably already too late. As soon as he made it to the door, he gave up on subtle and bolted for the bedroom. “Bucky, Bucky, Alpha!” He was urgent, and Bucky was still more than half asleep.

“Wha--?”

“There’s another Alpha, in rut-heat, around the kitchen, I can smell them, Alpha, I’m-- I was just talking to my mom on the phone and I can smell it--” Tony babbled, not entirely sure why he was terrified, but he was.

Bucky blinked, and the Tony’s soft, indulgent Alpha disappeared and he was looking at a fierce, deadly predator. “I’ll protect you,” Bucky promised. He was already out of the bed, looking less sleep-worn and sharper by the moment. He pulled on clothes, not the shabby sleepwear that he’d been using the last few days when pants were slightly necessary, but rugged and dark stuff from his closet, which gave Tony the impression of a soldier in a way he wasn’t quite ready to define.

Bucky threw a bag onto their bed, unrolling it and pulling out a pistol. “Here, you know how to use this, right?”

“Point and click,” Tony said, rolling his eyes. Yes, he knew how to use a gun, why did everyone always think he was useless?

A selection of knives went into Bucky’s gear. He strapped on a belt that -- were those urban grenades?

“Are we going to war?”

“Sure as hell hope not,” Bucky said. He stopped arming himself to touch Tony’s cheek. “But I ain’t gonna let some feral Alpha hurt you, or try an’ take you away from me, either. Better to be prepared.” He took a deep breath. “It’s that… Rumlow guy.”

“Shit,” Tony said. He looked down at the gun. “I can probably shoot him, if I need to.”

“I can take care of one green Alpha, so you shouldn’t need to, omega,” Bucky said. “C’mere.”

Bucky tugged Tony toward the closet. “I don’t need to hide under the bed like a kid,” Tony protested.

“Panic room,” Bucky said, shortly. “Ain’t well stocked, we went through a lot of our supplies, but you shouldn’t need it. But if something should happen to me, there’s a phone line. Call out, and tell the man who answers that the Sarge is down. They’ll send help.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Tony said, his voice suddenly wavering. “Are you-- you’re going _out there_?”

“I’m going to go have a little chat with your-- attacker. He’s green, I wave a gun at him, he’ll probably move on. This is just a precaution. I’ll work better out there if I know you’re safe. I want you to be safe, omega. It’s the only thing I want. I’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Load all the food in here, and lock yourself in,” Bucky told him. “I’ll be back in… a few hours, probably.”

Tony sighed, shivered. Suddenly everything seemed a little more real than it had before. Bucky was in actual danger. He was going out, deliberately, to fight for Tony’s honor. For more than that; he was going out to fight for his right to _keep_ Tony.

There was a tiny bit of Tony that thrilled to it; Bucky was his champion. That part read romance novels and wanted all the things that omegas were supposed to want. Another part was furious that Rumlow wouldn’t just give it up and go away. Didn’t the man know where he wasn’t wanted?

A third part was just worried.

The last part was annoyed at a system in which Tony was once again turned into a thing. A possession to have, something to take, that had nothing to do with Tony as a person.

“It’ll be fine, omega,” Bucky said. “Go on, get moving.”

“Okay.”

Tony just stood there, brain whirling so fast he couldn’t convince his stupid body to do anything. He wasn’t panicking. He wouldn’t condone panicking. There was nothing to panic about.

Bucky kissed him, hard and quick.

Tony still just stood there, until Bucky was gone, the door locked behind him, before he could finally cudgel his body into motion. He grabbed the food, threw it into the boxes that the delivery guy had left it in, shoved the boxes into the panic room. Checked the gun.

Closed himself in the panic room and listened to the triple bolted door lock behind him.

State of the art end of the world get up Bucky had put aside for them. Or, more exactly, for himself, it seemed.

There was a twin bed at the far end, a fold down table, a single chair. A laptop in a charging station. A mostly empty freezer, microwave and dozens of cans of heating gel for small cookfires. A crate of MREs. A tap for water and another crate of wet wipes.

Tony estimated that Bucky could live -- well, not comfortably, but live, at any rate -- for at least a week in the panic room if he had to, which made Tony wonder what, exactly, _Bucky_ was panicked about.

Tony indulged himself in a three wet-wipe “bath” and cursed Rumlow out for preventing him from having a real shower, breakfast, and possible a slow bit of knotting with his Alpha. Instead, he was going to be bored and nervous, never a good combination

He considered the phone, a single landline (did people even have those anymore? Apparently.) with an old fashioned cradle and handset. Who the hell was on the other end?

There were a lot of questions Tony had for his Alpha.

He threw himself down on the narrow bed.

As soon as Bucky got back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, yeah, this is happening. I've got a commission fic in the work, but hopefully I'll update this in the next 2 weeks and not leave you hanging for too long.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we're about to start the angst part of the plot. 
> 
> This chapter contains torture, attempted rape, and some other nasty things. you're the best judge of your own mental health. Happy ending will come, just not in this chapter.

Sometimes, Bucky thought, old tricks are the best. There’s a security in knowing the old tricks, the knowledge that everyone else knows them, too, so no one would be that stupid.

Bucky was nearly two miles from his cabin before he realized that he’d been fucking had.

He wasn’t sure if it was that Rumlow was that clever, that stupid, or that lucky. It didn’t really matter, he’d gone for it hook, line, and sinker.

The stench of Rumlow’s Alpha pheromones around his cabin had been so strong, it woke up every fucking instinct that Bucky had. Protect his mate. Kill the intruder.

He was even pretty sure, as he gleefully set out on the trail, he probably wouldn’t even get in trouble if he hurt Rumlow. They were all supposed to be civilized, these days, but some instincts were irrefutable. You didn’t fuck with another Alpha’s omega. Especially not during heats. That was just asking to be hurt. Even killed.

And Bucky might just let his predator a little loose. Rumlow had frightened and hurt Tony, even before Tony had bonded with Bucky; he might have earned a bit of a maiming.

Bucky was so busy thinking about what he’d do to Rumlow when he caught the jackass, that he didn’t realize, hadn’t quite noticed, that the scent was very potent. Almost concentrated. Like… someone had been territory pissing in a bucket for five days.

Like someone had convinced a friend to drag the bucket -- or maybe soaked towels, Bucky didn’t know -- halfway across the forest, just ahead of an Alpha.

Like Rumlow had known that Bucky wouldn’t be at the top of his game, exhausted from several days rut, and then his back up because of someone encroaching on his territory.

Because of course Rumlow had known all these things.

Bucky saw the trap just before he sprung it; not enough time to avoid it completely. The bear trap, hidden in the leaves, bit through his boot and tore the back of his calf open with silver, steely agony. It closed just behind him, wounding him, but not holding him.

Bucky’s pistol was in his hand inside a second, scanning the trees whoever would be waiting around.

Rumlow was smarter than he fucking looked.

The second trap went off as Bucky lined up the shot. A huge net of fibermesh weave closed around him, tangling him up in its threads. A jerk, and he was off the ground, at least three feet, dangling. He struggled, automatically. The whole bundle turned in a dizzying spin, turning the forest blurry around him.

He fought with motion, the entrapping fabric. Waited and got a shot off at the dark form coming toward him. That person went down with a scream, high pitched and frantic. “He shot me, Jackie--”

Electricity coursed through the fabric, juddering Bucky’s heart.

“Drop it,” another voice, probably Jackie, said. The electricity stopped, and Bucky was panting through the pain.

“Fuck yo--” Bucky couldn’t even get the pistol around again before Jackie triggered the current in the trap’s wires.

“Drop it. I can keep this up as long as you want.”

Bucky struggled, took another few batches of current, and even managed to get off a shot at Jackie -- he missed -- before they managed to get his weapons away from him.

“Jesus,” the wounded one said, pressing his hand to his bleeding shoulder -- Bucky’d barely grazed him, damn it. “He is one dangerous son of a bitch.”

“You better believe it,” Bucky said. He stared at each of them in turn, memorizing their faces. “Let me down now, and I won’t spend the rest of my life tracking you down. You’ll never have a night’s sleep again.”

Jackie shocked him again, just to be a bitch.

Bucky twitched his hand; he had two knives left, hidden under his clothes. One at the small of his back, another in his boot. He was not quite sure if he could reach either. Certainly not when they were paying so close attention.

“Get to work,” Jackie barked, kicking the wounded man in the leg.

“He fuckin’ shot me!”

“You want me to finish the job? Get to damn work!”

The wounded guy dug a phone out of his pocket, whimpering the whole time. _Jesus, what a fucking baby_ , Bucky thought. The guy wasn’t even bleeding that hard, the scent of blood barely enough to disguise whatever they’d been using to pretend to be Rumlow. Barely a goddamn scratch and he was acting like Bucky’d taken his arm off at the shoulder.

Jackie ducked in, very close. Close enough that Bucky could smell him, fear and a mad exhilaration. “Smile, you motherfucker, you’re about to be on film.”

Bucky yanked his head back, got the whole net swinging, faster than Jackie could track it. Aimed, and when the net moved him in range, slammed his forehead right into the delicate part of Jackie’s face, the bridge of his nose. It went with a sickening crack; the blow stunning him and sending shooting stars of pain through Bucky’s head. “Fuck you,” Bucky said, again, spitting.

Jackie stood up, slowly. His nose was obviously broken, blood gushing down his chin and onto his shirt. “You fucking bastard, you’re gonna pay for that.”

He pushed the button on his remote again.

Electricity shot through the net, seizing all of Bucky’s muscles, sending up flares of agony. His heart rate doubled, sweat sheathing his body. He held it in, gritted his teeth against it, but too soon, and not soon enough, Bucky was screaming helplessly. He could barely struggle, and it hurt, oh, Christ, it fucking hurt--

Jackie took his finger off the button and Bucky went limp inside the net. “You got it?”

“Sending now. Rumlow should get it-- like three minutes or so, guess? If the signal’s not terrible around here.”

 Bucky gasped for air, lingering pain shivering through his joints. He shifted his hand, carefully, whimpering. _Let them think you’re weak._ “What is is you want?”

Jackie was wiping his face tenderly with his shirt, smearing blood around. He gave Bucky a vicious grin. “Oh, it’s not what we want that you ought to be worried about,” he said. “It’s what Brock wants, and he’s gonna get. Your little omega, all alone, back at the cabin.”

Bucky jerked, involuntarily. He knew it, he’d known it, but hearing it said, so bald and maliciously, brought it home even harder. Tony! Tony was in danger--

“Leave--”

He didn’t even get to say anything before Jackie pushed the button again, sending Bucky into another spiral of pain, terror, rage.

“Yeah, you scream, you one armed freak. Go ahead an’ scream.”

***

Tony did not like being bored, but when Rumlow popped up on the closed circuit television, wandering aimlessly around the cabin like he belonged there, tiny and black and white, and yet, so unbelievably dangerous, Tony would have given about a third of his rather impressive fortune to go back to being bored.

The plastic handset of the phone was cool under Tony’s palm. He hesitated; did Rumlow showing up at the cabin mean that something had happened to Bucky. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.

Tony hesitated a moment longer and then Rumlow kicked the door in.

A single motion and he heard it a split second later as the door splintered and cracked and Rumlow forced his way into the cabin. “Come out, come out, little meggy, wherever you are.”

Muffled, though it was, through the closet and the thick door of the panic room, Rumlow’s voice ran chilling fingers down Tony’s spine.

He picked up the phone.

There was a dial tone for a brief second, then ringing.

“Where you hiding, you little shit?”

Rumlow vanished, then was picked up by another camera. How many of those fucking things did Bucky have around this place? Tony found himself wondering if they were in the bedroom. If they were recording?

Not the time, Stark. The phone in his hand continued to ring.

“This is your Captain speaking,” a voice said, and Tony opened his mouth to babble, but the voice kept going. A recording, an answering service, Tony thought.

“I-- this is Tony, I’m Bucky Barnes’ omega, and he said, fuck, I can’t remember what he said, but he’s not here, and there’s a hostile Alpha in our home, and--”

“Who is this?” A voice broke in, picking up the phone.

“My name’s Tony. Bucky Barnes is my Alpha-- James, James Barnes, Sergeant Barnes? You know him?”

“This is Captain Rogers,” the man said. “Where is Bucky?”

“I don’t know,” Tony wailed. “There were intruders and he went out to do something about it, and now there’s… Rumlow’s in the damn house and he said to call, Bucky said to call--”

“All right, Tony,” Captain Rogers said. “I want you to listen to me, listen very carefully, okay? We’re coming. You’re in the panic room?”

“Yes,” Tony said.

“Okay. I want you to stay there, _stay in there_ , no matter what, no matter what happens, you stay in there, okay? We’re on our way.”

“How long?” The line went dead in Tony’s hand. He punched the little disconnect tabs a few times, but there was nothing there. “God damn it, how long?” No answer.

And Rumlow was still in the house.  

“Hey there, little meggy,” Rumlow crooned. “You need to show yourself… I’m not going to hurt you…”

_Liar._

Rumlow prowled through the whole place, tossing over the furniture. He broke things that Tony couldn’t possibly hide behind, just to break them.

Tony watched, kept his hand over his mouth, wanting to cry, to scream. He glanced at the clock. He didn’t even know where Captain Rogers was, much less how long it would take him to get his team together and get to Tony’s location. How long did he have to watch this?

Where the hell was Bucky?

Rumlow walked right up to one of the cameras, that ugly, self-satisfied smirk on his face. “You see me, omega? Can you hear me? I got a surprise for you, so I hope you’re watching.”

He held up his phone. The image was tiny, out of focus, and then it snapped into clarity.

Tony’s heart stopped fucking beating.

“My guys,” Rumlow said, holding the phone even closer, “they caught themselves a little wild game.”

On the screen, Bucky was spinning slowly in a net, off the ground, held upside down.

“So, uh, here’s the deal, little omega, sweet thing-- I can fucking smell you, you better come out -- and you come out, and bad things won’t happen to your sweetheart.”

Rumlow kept the phone right up where Tony could see it, right there where Tony could hear his voice coming out of the phone, tinny and weak through the connection, but still, obviously Bucky.

One of the men on the ground hit Bucky with something, Tony couldn’t tell it was too small, the image was too small, but then it wasn’t small enough as Bucky started screaming in the video -- is it real, or is it Memorex, ran through Tony’s head, a crazy bit of nonsense. Screaming. And he kept screaming, even when he ran out of air to scream with.

The two men were laughing, and then--

“So, you see,” Rumlow said, taking the phone down. “You can come out and give me what I want. Or we’ll see if your Alpha holds up for longer than a shock stick battery.”

_Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck._

Tony swallowed hard, paced the length of the panic room, came back. Rumlow was still standing there, smug and satisfied in a way that made Tony want to hit him with a tire iron.

_Stay in the panic room, no matter what._

That’s what he’d been told. But he didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know how long a shock stick battery would last. He didn’t know where they were, he didn’t know how to find Bucky. He didn’t know how long it would take for Rogers to get there. Or if they could even find Bucky once they did.

He did know that even a police taser could kill under the right (wrong!) circumstances.

He paced again.

“Oh, look, they decided to have some more fun with him. I have another video now, you want to see?”

Tony did not want to see, he didn’t want to hear, and yet, like a trainwreck, he couldn’t look away.

Bucky was screaming again.

“Yeah, you scream, you one-armed freak--”

“Stop! Stop it, just stop,” Tony yelled. He wasn’t sure if Rumlow could hear him through the panic room’s wall. He scrambled, looking for the intercom.

“What do you want?” He burst, trying not to cry, Bucky wouldn’t want him to cry.

“Come on out, come out come out wherever you are. You come out, I’ll make them stop. If you don’t come out, well, the crip’s going to have a really, really bad day. And it’s all up to you. You can end this. Any time you want. Or, you know, go ahead, stay hidden. Maybe he’ll die.”

Delay, Tony thought. Every minute that Tony could stall gave Captain Rogers a little more time to get there, a little more time. He just needed time.

Time that he didn’t have.

“I wanna talk to him,” Tony said, desperately. “I want proof of life, I want--”

 _I want Bucky. I want him home and safe and I want all this to be gone and done. To have never happened._ Tony choked back a sob.

“You don’t hurry the fuck up, you worthless piece of ass, there might not be enough of him left to talk to,” Rumlow threatened.

“I want to know he’s still alive before I give you anything.”

Rumlow walked away from the camera and a moment later there was drumming on the door to the panic room. “Are you in there, Meggie? You want me to burn you out, is that it? Torture the crip to death and then fry you alive?”

“What is it you want?”

“I claimed you, I bit you, I want you. I’m owed. You’re mine, and no one takes what’s mine,” Rumlow snarled.

The scent of Rumlow was in Tony’s nostrils, just a whiff, from the air system, probably from whatever marked trail he was leaving for Bucky. Or maybe Tony was just remembering. Remembering the heat and sweat of him, the way he’d pushed at Tony, held him down.

“You let Bucky go,” Tony yelled. “Let him go, let me know he’s all right, and… and I’ll do whatever you want.” Tony’s voice cracked, broke.

“You’re not in a position to bargain with me,” Rumlow snarled, and Bucky was screaming again. Tony couldn’t tell, he couldn’t tell, if it was a recording, if Rumlow was just playing the same screams again or if Bucky was actively, right now in agony because Tony was trying to stall.

_Stay in the panic room._

Bucky was screaming.

Tony wrung his hands together until his skin was aching, his knuckles sore. Delay, delay, delay--

He couldn’t.

“Fuck! Just stop, oh my god, fucking stop!” Tony clamped his hands down over his ears, trying to block it out. “I’m coming out, just stop!”

The screaming cut off abruptly and Tony nearly sagged with relief. Tears trickled, unchecked, down his cheeks and he scrubbed at his chin with one hand. Fumbled for the gun, got it tucked in the back of his pants. Maybe Rumlow would leave an opening, maybe… maybe…

Too many maybes. Tony wiped his face with his tee and let it settle, disguising, he hoped, the bulge of the gun.

In the end, it was just bad luck, Tony would tell himself later.

In dreams, he’d see it, everything, cut into slices as he moved. The panic room’s door would open and Tony would step out. He drew the gun with a sudden, smooth motion and Rumlow’s smug smile disappeared like someone erasing a chalkboard.

Tony pointed the gun directly at Rumlow’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

Point and pull, just like he’d been taught.

He couldn’t possibly have missed, not at that close range.

Except the gun misfired. He pointed, he pulled the trigger, and _nothing happened_.

He pulled again. Nothing.

Rumlow charged in, swinging his arm. The third shot actually fired, but it was too late by then, Rumlow had knocked Tony’s hand aside and all he did was tear a hole in the wall of Bucky’s closet.

When it happened, it was sudden, terrifying, and over before Tony really knew what happened. Rumlow forced him to the floor, arm twisted behind his back. He felt splinters of the wooden floor driven into his chin, into his lip.

“You fucking little meggie,” Rumlow barked, and Tony was dashed against the floor again, barely getting his free arm up in time to keep from having his nose broken. “You little shit.” Rumlow was swearing at him, slapping him, shoving, and all Tony could think of was that it was over, it was over.

Rumlow grabbed a handful of Tony’s hair and yanked him to his feet. Tony screamed, scrambled for the fallen gun, couldn’t reach it. He kicked and struggled. Got a hold of Rumlow’s wrist and fucking bit down as hard as he could, bit even when he could taste blood.

Rumlow’s hand was back in his hair, yanking Tony’s head back, exposing his throat.

“No, no, no, no,” Tony screamed, trying to back away, but there was nowhere to go.

Rumlow’s teeth grazed Tony’s scent gland, sore and tender from where Bucky had been nipping at it for most of the week.

For most of Tony’s heat.

The sweet scent of pheromones filled the air around them, overpowering blood and fear and sweat.

“There you are,” Rumlow said, and he licked at the spot, forcing his own saliva into Tony’s system, claiming him. “Yeah, now you smell right, you smell better.”

He didn’t, Tony thought. He stank. Stank like betrayal, like terror, like something sick and rotted.

Rumlow was touching him. “ _Mine_ ,” Rumlow said, using his Alpha voice. It was weak, somehow. Puny. Like a boy trying to pretend to be a grownup. There wasn’t much force behind it, but it sent Tony to his knees. In agony.

In grief and useless rage and humiliation.

Rumlow’s voice thrummed in Tony’s veins.

“Your precious _Bucky_ was weak,” Rumlow told him. “He couldn’t hold you, couldn’t protect you. Well, you’re mine now, and you’re gonna say it. Go on, omega, say it.”

Tony clamped his jaw. He couldn’t get off his knees, he was supplicant to Rumlow’s claim, held prisoner by biology, by all the things about himself that he hated, but he wasn’t going to give Rumlow what he wanted.

If Rumlow wanted it, he was going to have to fucking take it, because Tony wasn’t going to give it to him. Tony spat, stared up at Rumlow with hatred and didn’t say anything.

The back of Rumlow’s hand was just as hard and quick as Tony expected.

“You’re mine, say it. Say it, you fucking--”

Tony checked out.

He wasn’t going to say it.

He closed his eyes, kept them as tight as he could. Kept his mouth shut. Curled up into a ball. He couldn’t fight back; every time he tried, Rumlow commanded him, used his Alpha voice, and Tony’s limbs would go weak.

Ashamed.

Terrified.

Rumlow’s hands were on him, and Tony couldn’t tell anymore what was happening. He hurt and he was lost to fear. He heard fabric tearing. Rumlow forced him over, bent him over something, a table? Tony didn’t know.

There was heat, and his body, his traitor fucking body, his goddamn omega heat, responded dimly. He shuddered.

There was a noise, like wood splintering. Rumlow’s weight fell away.

Something roared, like a huge animal.

A scream. Tony wasn’t aware of screaming.

He couldn’t help it. Tony opened his eyes.

Rumlow was caught. Bucky’s arm was around Rumlow’s throat, the metal moving remorselessly.

Rumlow was choking. His pants were around his ankles, his dick was out, and there was something wet on Tony’s thighs.

“ _Tony_?” Bucky’s voice was shaking, asking, God only knew what he was asking. Did Tony still belong to Bucky, or had Rumlow staked his claim?

Tony shook his head, not sure what he was denying. Not sure what answer was the right one, and which was the true one.

“Alpha,” Tony managed, looking up at Bucky. “I’m sorry.”

There was a sickening crack and Rumlow stopped moving. Bucky let the body slip to the floor.

“Oh, Tony, oh, omega, oh, my omega,” Bucky was crooning, gathering Tony into his arms, holding him. Tony clung to his Alpha with both hands.

 _I’m not sorry Rumlow’s dead_ , Tony thought, definitely. “I-- I didn’t mean-- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh, shh, shh, baby, what.. What are you sorry for, you didn’t do anything, oh, god, baby, he hurt you, look at… your poor face, Tony, baby.” Bucky was babbling, smearing blood across Tony’s mouth with his thumb.

“I left the panic room,” Tony confessed. “You told me-- you told me not to, and I did it.”

“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” Bucky told him. “I came as fast as I could, I ran th’ whole way. You’re safe now. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Tony buried his face in Bucky’s chest, sobbing with reaction. “He bit me--”

“I know,” Bucky said. “I’m so sorry, it never should have happened, I’m sorry.”

“Fix it,” Tony begged. “Please, Alpha--”

Bucky sniffed at Tony’s throat, ran a soothing tongue over the wound. “Tony, I… I can’t. You’re done. Your heat’s done, honey. There’s nothing left.”

_There’s nothing left._

Tony sobbed, shaking, and held onto his Alpha with both hands. _No, no, no. That can’t be, that can’t be right._

_There’s nothing left._

 


	5. Chapter 5

“You can’t kill him again,” Steve said, clapping Bucky on the shoulder. There was sympathy in that movement, the way it rocked Bucky all the way down to his heels.

Nothing like having five armed soldiers show up around the same time as police and emergency services to keep things nice and confusing.

“Yeah, that sucks,” Bucky said, listlessly kicking at a stone on the driveway. He struck it hard enough that it pinged off one of the police cars. Half the officers whirled, as if expecting to be attacked. Jumpy, they were.

The Howling Commandos had taken charge of the situation, despite what local police said. Steve had sent Dernier and Dum-Dum into the woods to recover the remnants of Rumlow’s little Alpha pack -- not dead, more’s the pity.

“They’re not going to give you any trouble about that,” Steve said. “Don’t worry.”

“No, I know,” Bucky said. You didn’t attack another Alpha’s omega. _Ever_. Especially not while they were in heat, not if you valued your life.

There might be some legal bullshit about Bucky having taken Tony away from Rumlow in the first place, but that first bite hadn’t even broken skin. Bucky was legally Tony’s Alpha, his mate. No matter what Tony smelled like now. Even if it reduced Tony even further into the role of _possession_.

“Sorry we weren’t here sooner.” Which Steve didn’t need to say, and he didn’t say the thing that everyone else would; if Tony hadn’t left the Panic Room…

“I know, pal,” Bucky said again, like there was anything else to say. Like Bucky hadn’t screwed this up so bad that it might never be right.

“What are you gonna do now?”

“Take care of Tony,” Bucky said. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Even if biology failed him, he still had a paper bond.

“No one would blame you--”

“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t,” Bucky said. “He’s still my omega, and I’m going to take care of him. If he’ll let me.” All Bucky could see, whenever he closed his eyes, was the wounded look on Tony’s face as he protested, as he begged for Bucky to be able to _fix it_.

“If there’s anything we can do,” Steve said. “You know every one of us owes you our damn lives.”

“You still on good terms with that doctor, you know the one?”

“Cho? Yeah, well, I mean I haven’t seen her in years, but we’re not enemies or anything,” Steve said. Not that the nature of the business didn’t mean that sometimes today’s enemies weren’t tomorrow’s allies, and the reverse was often true as well. “She was doing some project for Ross, last I heard.”

“See if you can’t get her attention,” Bucky said. “I remember reading a file on her work that could do something for us, here.”

“You think she can do something for you? For either of you?”

“You didn’t see him, Stevie, fuckin’ begging me to do something, and I couldn’t. I would… I would do anything to fix this. I gotta try, don’t I?”

He wasn’t even sure where Tony was; the ambulance had come and beta med techs had bustled around Tony, soothing and almost cooing. Bucky’d gotten a blanket draped around his shoulders, and reminded that if he needed something for the pain. Bucky’d nearly snarled at the med-tech and sent them to see to Tony.

All he was certain of was that they hadn’t taken Tony anywhere; that would require Bucky’s verbal okay. Unless someone had decided that they needed Rumlow’s okay, in which case they were going to be waiting a long time.

The body had been tastefully covered until someone could get there with a body bag.

Bucky stared at the shape of it, like he could set the corpse on fire just by wishing it so.

A new car pulled into the already overcrowded front lawn. When Bucky’d moved in, there hadn’t been more than a trail for him to ride his bike down, but Sam and Steve had insisted on carving a drive for cars, and Bucky was wishing now that they hadn’t. How the hell was anyone supposed to get anything done if people could just traipse in and out of Bucky’s place like they fucking owned it. He didn’t even know who this asshole was in the pricey sportscar.

It was the sort of vehicle that screamed money and _notice me_. The man who exited from the car had the same look to him, someone who was used to people doing what he said. An Alpha’s Alpha, except the stray breeze that carried his scent said beta. Said expensive cologne. Said…

“Oh, hell,” Bucky said.

“What?”

“It’s _Howard Stark_ ,” Bucky said, jerking his chin. “My omega’s father.”

“That’s Howard Stark?” Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Somehow I expected him to be taller.”

Bucky disguised a bitter laugh as a cough. “I think he thinks he’s taller, too.”

“Where is he?” Howard was bellowing by the time Bucky made his way through the crowd. He was about at the edge of his wits.

“Steve, clear these fuckers out of here, we don’t need anything else, thank them, they can all go home now. Or whatever.” Bucky didn’t even look to see if Steve was on it, because Steve would be. They weren’t lying or exaggerating. Every man of the Commandos owed Bucky, and if making the cops and reporters and onlookers and bystanders get the fuck off was what they could do to even begin to repay that debt, Steve would do it.

Hell, Steve probably would have just done it for the fun of it.

“Excuse me, sir--”

“Who are you?”

“James Barnes,” Bucky said, trying to keep his voice low.

“Who?”

“I’m Tony’s Alpha,” Bucky said, politeness straining his features.

Howard give him a look, some sort of dismissive eyeroll. “Not anymore, you’re not. Heard all about it on the damn radio on the way here,” Howard said. “Lost him, did you? Not that he’s not slippery enough little bastard on his own. But you’d think you could have taken better care for the few days you had him. Well, go on then, get him out here.”

“ _What_?” Each word that Howard spoke was like a knife in Bucky’s heart, made worse by the salt that Howard didn’t even care, he wasn’t gauging those words for their reaction, he was just talking. Stating his demands and thoughts as if they were the only ones that mattered.

“Well, obvious, you don’t have any use for him anymore,” Howard said, staring around like he expected Tony to miraculously appear because he was summoned.

“I have a great many uses for Tony,” Bucky said, calm. The shroud of cold that draped over him should have been a warning. The way he always took a deep breath before firing a shot, the way he closed himself off to his emotions when he was going to have to take a life.

Howard probably had no idea how very close he was to death.

“You think so? I’m half tempted to let you find out,” Howard said. “He’s useless, rebellious, head in the clouds. Bad enough I was going to lose him to this ridiculous mating, now he’s unappealing for anyone else.”

“You don’t need to concern yourself with that,” Bucky said. “As I have no intention of letting my omega out of the contract for any other reason than his express desire. So long as Tony wants to stay here, Tony can stay. The contract is as binding as it ever was, as far as I’m concerned.”

Howard stared, like Bucky had started spouting gibberish. Or Greek, perhaps.

“Where is he?”

“With the medical personnel,” Bucky said. “He was injured in the day’s events.”

Howard stalked off toward the ambulance, leaving Bucky to flounder and trail in his wake. What the hell was wrong with that man; his son was hurt, injured, and he was worried about a broken contract? Assumed that Tony was unwanted and should, what? Go with his father?

_No_. Tony needed his Alpha. Or he needed the comfort of other omegas. What he did not need was a stick-up-his-ass beta who had no actual idea what he was talking about. Who thought of Tony as a burden and not a gift.

“Boy!” Howard bellowed as they sided the ambulance.

Tony was there, under a blanket, while a nurse took his blood pressure, and he cringed as Howard made the curve. Like he was trying to be smaller, to hide, and at the same time, his fingers clenched in a fist.

Rebellious, Howard had said. That was bullshit. What Bucky saw there was a boy who’d been ill-treated, verbally abused, and probably more than that.

“Tony, I’m here,” Bucky said, pushing past Howard and moving close enough for Tony to see him, if he wanted to look. To reach for him, if he wanted.

There was a decade that Bucky aged before Tony actually lifted his head. “Bucky?”

“Yes, I’m here,” Bucky told him, and when Tony took his hand, Bucky could have cried with relief. “Your father’s here, too. And the nurses and doctors and half the police force, and the Howling Commandos, for that matter.”

“You’re the only one who matters,” Tony insisted.

“That’s good to hear, baby,” Bucky said, and he let Tony pull him into an embrace that was more painful and desperate than loving. “I’ve got you.”

“Boy--”

Tony stiffened in Bucky’s hold. “No.”

“No what, baby? Whatever you want, but I need to know what it is.”

“I’m not leaving,” Tony said, sniffling. He wiped his face against Bucky’s chest. “If-- you didn’t call him, did you?”

“No, honey, god, no,” Bucky protested. Not that it would have even occurred to him to call Tony’s parents, not until the fuss was mostly over. You called family once everyone was settled in the hospital, once there was some news, something to do.

“Are… are you sending me away?”

“Never.”

“Then I’m staying.”

Bucky didn’t even speak, he just tucked his chin over Tony’s hair and held him, gazing at Howard Stark with utter loathing.

“Don’t be stupid, what do you think you’re going to do with a broken omega?”

“Mr. Stark, I wouldn’t give you a broken glass, much less let you have custody over Tony,” Bucky said, coldly. “Get off my property.”

Steve, with that sixth sense for trouble that he had, showed up, and politely, but firmly, saw Howard Stark to his car before Bucky was forced to throw his omega’s father out on his ear. The way Tony clung and shuddered, he might not have minded, but at the same time, Bucky wanted to make sure Tony knew the truth. That nothing, not the pleasure of kicking Howard’s ass, or anything else, was more important to him than Tony’s well being.

“I’ve got you,” Bucky told him. “We’re going to get through this, baby, I promise. I’m going to take care of you.”

“Why?”

Bucky’s heart almost broke, hearing how pitiful that one word sounded.

“You’re my omega,” Bucky told him, “and nothing can change that.” He kissed Tony’s hair, kept him in a close embrace, and wished with everything in him, that Tony believed that. “You’re mine.”

***

There was no amount of showering that was going to remove Rumlow’s stink from him. Tony’s body was excreting it, mixed with his own pheromones. Just like he was supposed to. Like his body had never cared what Tony wanted, what Tony needed. Jesus, stupid fucking biology.

He’d showered until the water went cold, soaped himself thoroughly with Bucky’s bar, used his shampoo until his hair was so squeaky it was attracting mice, doused himself in Bucky’s aftershave and fifteen minutes later, Tony was sniffing and smelling god damn Brock Rumlow.

Who was dead.

He was dead and he had no claim on Tony now.

“The law’s on our side, baby,” Bucky had told him, and Tony believed that, because he didn’t have a choice. “You’re mine,” Bucky had also said, and Tony wasn’t sure if he believed that or not. He sure as fuck didn’t smell like Bucky’s.

“Hey--” Bucky sat down on the floor near Tony’s feet. “You warm enough?”

Tony was wrapped in a blanket and cuddled in Bucky’s chair. He was… not warm. But he didn’t know _why_ he wasn’t warm.

Bucky took his hesitation for what it was, got to his feet and brought in a small space heater and another blanket. Wrapped Tony up in it like he was some sort of Tony dim sum.

“Thanks,” Tony said, barely a whisper. He wanted to be more grateful, more accomodating -- warmer -- in some way that would make Bucky want him. But he really couldn’t seem to find the strength.

“So, uh,” Bucky said, dropping down again. That was nice of him, it was a lot easier for Tony to look down than to look up at his Alpha the way Bucky deserved. The way all Alphas were supposed to be observed, by the omegas who were lesser, who were subservient, who were…

Bucky was sitting on the floor, and he was talking, and Tony supposed he should be paying attention. “-- pretty sure you don’t want to go in, but maybe you could make us a list?”

“What?” Tony blinked. He was a genius, but he was pretty sure what he heard couldn’t possibly be what Bucky had said.

“For your workshop. Just tell me what you need, we’re going to bring it all back here.”

Tony raised his eyes and looked around the cabin. “An’ put it where?”

“Dum-Dum’s got some basic floor plans drawn up,” Bucky said. “You’ll probably want to look over them. He’s a beta, if it won’t make you too uncomfortable, he’s willing to listen to any suggestions or requests that you want to make. He wasn’t sure-- something about power draw. I don’t know. Not my field.”

“Floor plans?”

“For an addition,” Bucky said. “Well, it’s not technically an addition. Consider it more like a specialized outbuilding. I didn’t think we’d want th’ guys tracking in through the living room for a few days. So, it’ll be out in the back yard, a bit. I’ve got a lot of land around here. Steve’ll push the permits through, he’s stubborn that way. I feel bad for city hall, if they decide to fuck with him about it. So, can you do that, or do you want to just trust Dum on this?”

Tony shrugged. Bucky was, what? Building him a workshop? Why?

_To keep you occupied_ , his brain told him, _and out of the house while you stink of Rumlow._

“That’s a lot of effort,” Tony said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know if you’d want to go back to school, so I thought… we could bring the school to you,” Bucky said. “I’ve already spoken with the director, he’s going to have your teachers put your coursework together, and I’ve got a computer and hook up, so that much you can get started on. You know, if you want to. If not, you can get a deferment until the next semester, so you don’t get too far behind. I-- look, I’m just talking, and you don’t have to answer or do anything, or make any decisions now.”

“Okay.”

“But I want to make sure you know what’s going on, and that I’m… I want you to be comfortable here. Happy, if you can. I don’t know if that’s possible anymore, Tony, and I am so sorry-- but you don’t need that right now, it’s okay.”

“What?”

“Nothing, honey. It’s fine, we’re gonna be just fine.”

“Appreciate the sentiment,” Tony said, cursing himself even as he said the words, “but I somehow doubt the veracity. God, I sound like my _mother_.”

“You can, uh, I mean, I can call her for you, or you can call her, she’s welcome to come out an’ visit, or I can-- well, I dunno, your father may be a little tetchy. He’s kinda a tool, sorry about that.”

“You don’t need to be sorry about Howard,” Tony said. “He’s always been like that, it’s nothing you did. He… he wanted an Alpha kid. That was his whole plan, marry an omega and get an Alpha heir. Or a beta, at worse case. He’ll never forgive me for being an omega. Especially not now that I messed up all his plans of mating and breeding me off.”

Bucky made a face and Tony blanched. Dropped his head and pulled the blankets up around his shoulders. He shouldn’t have said anything about kids. Tony supposed it was possible that he was pregnant. That was going to be a fucking nightmare. Rumlow hadn’t managed to stick it in him, but he was still going to smell like _Rumlow_ thought a pregnancy, and that was going to prevent Bucky being being able to bond with his own kid, was going to keep Bucky from being able to comfort and support _Tony_.

“Well, you don’t worry about that right now, love,” Bucky told him. “We’ve got six months on this contract, and I’m going to take care of you, and get you everything you want, okay?”

“Rhodey,” Tony said, and then he actually sobbed, because it was true, it was true, damnit. Bucky was being as sweet and loving and supportive, even more so than Tony thought he could reasonably expect from an Alpha, even one who liked him, but Tony wanted--

“Is that a person, or a thing?”

“My best friend,” Tony sniffled, and then wiped his face angrily on one of the blankets. He hadn’t wanted to start crying, because he knew if he started that it was going to be hard to stop and here he was proving that all over the place. “He’s… he’s in the Air Force. Captain James Rhodes.”

“Flyboy,” Bucky said, and Tony hiccuped a laugh, because even in desperate, crazy, stupid situations, there was always going to be branch rivalry. “Okay, okay, honey. I’ll get him for you.”

“What? You’re gonna do what, exactly?”

“I’ll get him for you,” Bucky said. “My best friend, who just happens to be in my back yard, clearing some land to put your workshop? That’s Captain Rogers. Not… a Captain, who happens to be named Rogers. But The Captain Rogers. You know--”

“Captain America?”

“That’s the guy,” Bucky said. “I’ll introduce you to him… when you’re feeling better.”

_When you don’t look like you’ve been sobbing your eyeballs out_ , Tony translated.

“Steve can be kinda… blunt sometimes, and I’d hate to have to kick his ass for upsetting you,” Bucky continued, and that was so unexpected that Tony found himself staring at his Alpha in shock.

“You’d do that?”

“Yes,” Bucky said.

“And I’d let him,” another voice, unexpectedly deep, said. “Sorry, happened to overhear that you might need my political pull and I came over to remind Bucky that he still owes me a favor.”

“Or, he can butt in and be a pain in my ass,” Bucky said. “Ya damn punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve -- apparently -- shot back. “I’ll get out of your hair, but I just wanted to say… if there’s anything we can do, fetch, build, knock over, or drag out, let us know. Buck’s… uh, he’s better at the cuddly stuff than I am, but if you need someone soft to hang on, Morita’s pretty sweet. Or if you want some omegas to keep you company, I know Peggy would love to have some omega time. She’s… my mate.”

“Your boss, I think someone told me,” Tony said, slanting his eyes at Bucky.

“My superior officer, as a matter of fact,” Steve said. “Still is. Superior to me in every way. She’ll like you. But I’ll talk to Ross, see what I can do about getting your friend some leave.”

“Secretary of State Ross?” Tony’s voice went up several registers.

“Yeah. Ol’ Thunderbolt. I hate him. Buck’s gonna owe me like four favors.”

“Pfft,” Bucky scoffed. “You were already in the hole for at least two. Talk to Dernier, he owes me for that thing in Lithuania. I’ll cash that in, an’ you can have it.”

“Well, that works out, since I owed Dernier a few favors myself, makes us all square,” Steve said, grinning.

“Hey, uh, Captain,” Tony said, tentatively. “I… think I’d like that. Meeting your boss, I mean.”

“Sure thing, Tony,” Steve said. “I’ll make it happen.”

There was a long, almost comfortable silence after Steve left the room, like everything in the room had gotten smaller, and yet cozier, after he left it. “He makes me believe it,” Tony said. “Your friend. He makes me believe he can… just make it happen.”

“He can,” Bucky said. “He will.”

“So,” Tony said, picking at the corner of the blanket. “What happened in Lithuania?”

“What? Oh, nothing. Dernier probably bought me a coffee. We… uh… it’s kinda an injoke,” Bucky said. “Like ‘I owe you for my life’ is way too deep, too much… you know, serious? So we make a big deal out of piddly little shit and get all _you owe me!_ for it.”

Tony nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think… I think I get that.” Didn’t he and Rhodey do the same thing? Call each other ridiculous pet names, rather than say what was really in their hearts. “Yeah, that’s… that’s pretty cute. I’ll buy all your friends coffee. Have the whole cadre of Howling Commandos at my beck and call. Captain Fucking America, doing me a favor.”

“You will,” Bucky said. “Get the civet cat coffee, and like, don’t tell anyone until after. I want to see their faces when I tell them they’ve been drinking cat-shit coffee.”

Tony snorted indelicately, which surprised him, and then, he was laughing and crying at the same time. Hysterical, Howard would have called him.

Bucky didn’t say anything derisive or mocking. He just held Tony and rocked him, letting him cry it out, all the fear and anxiety and worry, until Tony was hiccuping and sniffling.

“There, there,” Bucky said, soothing him and petting Tony’s hair. “I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay.”

Tony let his head rest on Bucky’s shoulder, exhausted, and hoped more than believed, that maybe it would be.

Maybe it would be okay.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been a crazy few weeks, so this wasn't proofed. any errors are my own, and I'm not in an emotionally good space for you to point them out right now, so please don't.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I'm going to go hide now.
> 
> Don't kill me.
> 
> See you in two weeks.

Peggy Carter was one of those omegas that Tony hated on sight.

Flawlessly beautiful, with perfect hair, clothing that seemed effortlessly to go together, blemish-free, and moved with purpose.

She was wearing a dark blue dress, sturdy looking heels that nonetheless emphasized her long legs and made her calves stand out prominently. She had a red belt that pulled her waist in snug, and a matching bag and hat. Seriously, how did she do that? Tony’d tried to figure out the whole clothes thing -- once, when he was still under the very wrong impression that he could make Howard proud of him -- and it seemed even black didn’t match with black.

Steve Rogers’ omega was just as much perfection as Steve Rogers was a perfect Alpha. They were well matched, they looked perfect together, as well as apart. They’d probably make adorable, perfectly behaved babies.

It was enough to make Tony want to puke.

Again.

It didn’t help that Tony had been hip-deep in laying power cables for the little workshop that the Commandos were building in Bucky’s back yard. He was filthy, wearing a paint-stained and grease smeared band tee, jeans with tears that came from actually tearing his pants and weren’t fashionably ripped straight from the store, mismatched socks, and steel-toed boots.

Peggy Carter looked like she’d just stepped off a runway, her makeup perfect, hair exactly so, and her bright red, lipstick painted mouth pursed in a moue of disgust or dismay, or something. Tony was used to the expression, he just didn’t usually care enough to interpret it.

“Steven!”

Her voice wasn’t what Tony would have called melodic or soft, which was, thus far, the only imperfection he’d noticed. Instead, it was crisp, stern, and it carried sharply from where she stood all the way to the back of the house.

Her voice also wasn’t shrill, or whiny, and shrewish, or any of the other words that had been used to describe demanding omegas in general and Tony in specific. It did, however, garner results.

Steve appeared seconds later, leaning in the doorway almost negligently.

“You bellowed?”

“I did not bellow,” Peggy correct him. “You have not yet heard that tone of voice from me, and believe me, when you do, you will remember the occasion.”

“Duly noted. But, since I am out here anyway, what is it you think I need to do?”

“You can start by getting this poor child something to drink,” she said. “It’s hot out here, he’s sweating, and doing heavy labor. Also, gloves. Cable-laying should not be done barehanded. And then I wish you to explain to me why you did not tell me there was construction to be done, I’m inappropriately dressed.”

“I thought Tony would rather come out and talk with you,” Steve said, mildly.

“Nonsense,” Peggy said. “He looks quite happy where he is, if a bit thirsty and getting blisters. No need to bother to move indoors. If you will give me but a moment to change my clothing, I shall join you.”

With that, she turned neatly on one high heeled shoe and disappeared into the house.

At no point had Tony been introduced, or even so much as said a word. He blinked.

“Hurricane Carter,” Bucky added. “You get used to her.”

“Or she flattens you,” Dum-Dum added. “That happens sometimes. She’s pretty good at just rolling over idiots that stand in her way. Like the Captain.”

“She did not roll over me,” Steve protested.

“No, as I recall, she shot you for kissin’ another dame,” Bucky said.

“That was not my fault.” Steve said. “She kissed me, I didn’t kiss her.”

“Well, you didn’t push her away, either,” Peggy said, coming back out. She was dressed completely differently, in work-appropriate footwear, heavy denim jeans that still outlined those legs, and a blue tee. There was nothing sexy about what she was wearing, and yet, she still exuded an aura of sexuality that Tony would have been hard pressed to ignore. And he was an _omega_.

“So, what’s the project, then?” Peggy smacked her hands against her thighs.

“We’re uh,” Tony said, pointing back at what had used to be a small storage shed and was in the process of becoming a computer mainframe and robotics lab. “Well, today, we’re laying in the wiring and HVAC systems. I’ve got two PDUs set up, and all the underpining’s been laid up to the server racks. We’d have had the whole thing ready to go like two weeks ago, except the permits got hung up in some red tape.”

He wasn’t going to blame Howard for that, for bogging down their projects out of sheer petty spitefulness, but Tony wasn’t going to absolve him of it, either.

Point of fact, Tony didn’t actually know if Howard had bothered. Usually he didn’t bother with Tony at all, unless Tony happened to directly be in his way.

Which made Tony wonder -- Howard had actually gotten involved enough to drive out to Bucky’s place and attempt to recover his wayward son -- why. So, if there had been some spite behind Bucky’s permit delays, it wouldn’t surprise Tony that Howard was involved. Maybe better not to ask the question, really.

Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to know what the answer was.

“Laying wire, or digging holes?” Peggy eyed Tony’s shirt, bringing him back to the present.

“Uh, we finished digging the trench, I’ve just been crawling in it,” Tony explained.

“You’re a board-certified electrician?”

Tony blinked. “Of course.” He’d gotten that cert when he’d been _twelve_ , did she think he was an idiot?

“Well, that’s useful,” she said. “Put me to work, boss.”

“I… uh, thought you were the boss.”

“I’m only the boss of Steve, and most of the SSR department that runs under me,” Peggy said. “And I’m on vacation, so today, _you’re_ the boss.”

“Does that make me the boss of Steve?”

“No,” Steve said.

“Okay, so he’s the boss,” Tony said.

“And I make everyone look good, so there’s that,” Peggy said. She hopped down into the ditch next to him. “And where’s that water, Steve? Hydration, it’s a thing!”

Tony couldn’t help but stare as the elegant, perfect omega started unrolling the cabling, looking as if for all the world like she knew what she was doing. Steve handed him a bottle of water, which Tony took on instinct.

“What?” she exclaimed, putting her hand on her hip and getting mud on her pants. “You’re staring.”

“Sorry, I--” What?

“Didn’t know an omega could do honest work? Aren’t you an omega?” She asked pointedly.

“Well, yes, but I’m a freak. Everyone says so,” Tony tried to explain, and why should he have to, didn’t she know what it was like.

“Not everyone,” Peggy said. “I was about your age, I think, when I took over my own department at SSR. I was staying after hours one night to finish up several Alpha’s paperwork--” she turned to give Steve a glare, who just shrugged.

“Still don’t do paperwork,” he admitted.

“And there was no one around, so I investigated, I cracked the spy network--”

“She went in, kicked Hydra’s ass and took names,” Dum-Dum contributed. “We’ve all seen the tape.”

“I was invisible, before that,” Peggy said. “Unless I had someone’s lunch, or their coffee, or their damn reports, no one listened to me. And it didn’t even change as much as it should have. Others took credit for my work. And I kept telling myself that it was all right. I didn’t need anyone else’s affirmations. I know my own worth.”

Tony nodded. It was an effort to keep his mouth from dropping open while he stared like an idiot.

“You think you’re the only one who feels that way?” Peggy wondered. “That you’re the only one who dreams of being more than what your biology and society says you can be?”

“No one talks about it,” Tony muttered. “Everything’s all Ten Ways to Attract an Alpha, and how to do your nails, and-- you do all that, too. Doesn’t it get _exhausting_?”

“Of course it does, darling,” Peggy said. She was still laying down the cable, and as she glared, Tony decided that he could work and listen. In fact, that was to be preferred. He grabbed an insulated shovel and started covering the line. “But here’s the trick. The only way we’re going to get ahead in this world is to look exactly as they expect, and to be exactly what we want. Twice as much work, half as much credit. But… you should do it for you, not for any theoretical gold stars, because I’ll tell you what. You’re never going to get them.”

“You can have all my gold stars, any day, Pegs,” Steve said. He was straw-bossing, Tony thought, standing at the edge of the ditch and watching his omega do all the heavy lifting.

Which was both extremely rude and utterly fascinating at the same time. Maria would have broken a nail just hopping in the ditch, and she’d have complained vociferously until someone told her she didn’t need to help, and why would she not go sit on the porch where it was comfortable… assuming anyone would have let her pick up a tool to start with.

Steve should not just be standing there, he should have offered to help, even if she wanted to do it.

Tony’s gut was quivering, like he was on the verge of some extraordinary discovery.

Not only was Steve just standing there, but the rest of the Commandos were, too. Or they were doing their own tasks, not bothering to treat Peggy any differently. As if she really was part of the team.

“How--” Tony didn’t even know what to ask. “Can--”

“Would you like me to show you how it’s done?”

“I think I might give my left nut to know how you’re doing that,” Tony said fervently.

“I wouldn’t,” Bucky piped up. “You need that. And by extension, I need that.”

“No payments in body parts required,” Peggy said. “Let us finish one task before we’re on to the next, darling. Steven, stop hovering and do something useful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said, giving her a quick, two fingered salute.

Tony was staring again, he could feel it. “You’re amazing, Ms. Carter.”

“My title is Agent,” Peggy said. “But you can call me Peggy. And I know, I’m quite impressive. And so, my dear boy, are you. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

“Your omega is corrupting Tony,” Bucky complained.

“Yep. That was a foregone conclusion, Buck.”

***

“No,” Peggy said. Her voice was good natured and friendly, but it was still a scold. “Look up. Straight up, eye level.”

“If I don’t look at the ground, I’m gonna fall,” Tony complained. The heeled shoes were subtle, a lift disguised as a boot, and under his pants, no one could tell he was wearing angled shoes at all. It made him taller, which was always considered attractive in one of those very gendered ways -- since omegas were normally shorter and more slender than their Alpha counterparts, but a tall omega was a good thing. As long as they weren’t too tall. It was all very arbitrary and ridiculous, as far as Tony was concerned.

On the other hand, the heeled shoes made his ass look fantastic. Tony had always known he’d had a great ass -- even before he’d presented -- because he’d been constantly told so, by older Alphas, which was just weird and creepy and he wasn’t really sure he wanted a great ass. Right up until Bucky looked at him like he was getting ready to pounce.

“You are an omega, darling,” Peggy said. “The world wouldn’t dare trip you.”

“You don’t actually believe that bullshit, do you?”

Peggy didn’t scowl at him. She didn’t need to. One lifted eyebrow and Tony could practically taste the exasperation. Normally, it was the sort of thing that got Tony’s back up and made him want to do something stupid, like fling himself at the ground as hard as possible, just to prove her wrong.

His mother would say, “I swear, Antonio, if you chip a cup, you’ll smash the whole cupboard out of spite.”

Tony blew a mouthful of air out with a huff. “I know, I know. I’m just hopeless at this stuff, Peggy. My mom was trying for years to get me to… I don’t know. Be all light and airy and grace and fashion.”

“She is beauty, she is grace, she will punch you in the face,” Steve said. Tony was never entirely sure how much Steve was paying attention to what was going on, except that he always seemed to know exactly where his omega was.

“I’m not even so great at the punching,” Tony sulked.

“Let’s start with just walking, darling,” Peggy said. “Sometimes you have to run before you can crawl, but I don’t advise doing so while in heels. Until you’re used to them. Look, it’s simply a matter of balance. If you’re looking at the ground, you’re bending forward, even if it’s only slightly, putting your weight onto your toes. That makes you decidedly lopsided. Wobbly. Instead, put your chin up, look at the horizon. You are the ruler of all you survey. Arms out lightly for balance. Think to yourself ‘I will murder the next person who gets in my way’ and then _walk_. Like you mean it. Like there’s nothing that can stand in your way. But that you have all the time in the world to get there. The world waits for you, my dear. As it should.”

Tony had as many tutors as his parents could find; all of them had quit within a week. There wasn’t enough money in the world to put up with obstinate, headstrong, and _utterly useless_ Tony Stark. More than one finishing coach had called him hopeless. One had even suggested having Tony tested to make sure he absolutely was an omega, since they’d never met anyone more graceless than Tony, and maybe he had some sort of rare genetic disorder.

Tony had scoffed. In Victorian days, they’d called omegas _hysterical_ , and that had been widely disproven by science, even if a lot of alphaholes still believed it. The fact was, omega hysterical syndrome had been on the books until the early 80s. It wasn’t an illness; it was stress that compounded because omegas weren’t allowed to live their lives; they weren’t allowed to kill, maim, or otherwise disable the asshole Alphas who treated them like walking wombs.

He was, he’d told them all, rich enough to be eccentric. He wasn’t going to bow and scrape and cater and pretend to be nothing more than a vaguely ambulatory set of genitalia.

That had sent the last one of the finishing tutors to packing her things. “Good luck marrying him off,” she’d said, nose in the air.

And yet, after all that, here was Peggy Carter, omega to one of the most decorated Alphas in the military, trying to teach Tony how to be an omega. She hadn’t yelled at him. She hadn’t called him hopeless. She certainly hadn’t thrown up her hands in despair. She wasn’t… gentle, exactly. Her sarcasm was finely honed and her wit extremely cutting.

Tony liked her.

He liked her _a lot_.

Which made him rather weirdly desperate to make her proud of him.

Walking in heels was applied physics. Makeup was enhanced biology. Cooking was chemistry that you could eat. She talked to him in Tony’s own language, making things that had seemed ridiculous and time-wasting and silly and impractical into something more. Something with specific reasons behind it.

“Omegas are beautiful,” she said, handing him a tube of foundation. “That’s the core belief of every Alpha in our society. That if an omega is ugly, or uncoordinated, that must mean something is wrong with them, and an Alpha doesn’t want to take one on, because that means a loss of comfort and convenience for _them_. Which leads to a loss of status. So, omegas, being _human beings_ , just like everyone else on the damn planet, had to use the same tools everyone else does. We’re tool using animals, to give us speed and agility, the ability to hunt and build and achieve. Omegas just use that same tool, our brain, to get what we need.”

“An Alpha,” Tony said, glumly.

“Respect,” Peggy corrected. “We gain status and respect by being beautiful.”

Tony scoffed. “People are just born beautiful.”

“And you were born _smart_ ,” Peggy snapped. “But I don’t see you counting _that_ as an unfair advantage. It’s something you were born with, but also something you had to utilize to take advantage of. You had to train your genius, you couldn’t just rest on being able to read a few grade levels ahead. Pure genius? Not necessarily as useful in day to day life as we might like to believe. Neither is beauty something that’s just intrinsical. Despite what most magazines would have you believe, people _do_ have different ideals of beauty.”

“Maybe being beautiful isn’t something I want,” Tony said.

“Then you’re a fool. You take advantage where you can. Always. Because believe me, someone will take advantage of you, otherwise.”

***

“When someone told me that I’d stop breaking out when I was out of my teens, they were a lying sack of shit and should be shot,” Tony said, staring at an outbreak of acne across his forehead and a nice big zit on his chin. Like, he could balance a damn teacup on it, it was that bad.

Okay, so maybe he was over-reacting, but he was supposed to be showing off his whole learning to be an omega thing. Especially since his mom was coming to dinner to meet his Alpha for the first time, and Peggy had taken him shopping for an outfit and they’d been working on the makeup thing and the walking in heels thing and the looking like these clothes were made for you thing. All the things. Too many things.

So, quite possibly, he was stressing out about a lot of things and therefore his face was breaking out. But really, he was nineteen years old, he shouldn’t be staring morosely in the mirror and picking at his skin.

Well, at least Peggy’s lessons were coming in handy, he decided.

There was a lot of makeup on his vanity.

The fact that he had a damn vanity said something. And why was the word _vanity_ , like he was the one who was trying to be pretty, not that Alphas were the ones expecting him to be pretty? Like, Tony would be perfectly happy to slump about in tees and jeans with bare feet and grease on his face, except society expected him to be beautiful.

And they expected it to be _effortless beauty_ , when seriously, all this fucking shit that he had to spackle onto his face meant getting up at least an hour earlier.

Okay, okay, to be fair and honest, Bucky didn’t, at least, seem to _expect_ it.

On the other hand, Tony would have had to have both eyes poked out by a mascara wand not to notice that Bucky seemed to _appreciate_ it. The first time Tony had “spruced up a bit” as Peggy would put it, and came out for drinks and snacks with all the Alphas, Bucky’s eyes had lit up like a Christmas tree, and he’d preened over Tony for the whole evening, proud and delighted. Like somehow everyone in the room was supposed to be impressed with Bucky for landing Tony as an omega.

Tony didn’t want to like it. He didn’t want to bask in Bucky’s attention and feel pretty. It was like giving up, giving in, to everything he’d been fighting his whole life, and did that make him a bad equal rights advocate if he was doing all the things that the Alpha dominant society expected of him, and that he was fucking enjoying it?

Why did everything have to be so complicated? Couldn’t he just like chocolate without being all silly about it? Could he have mood swings without being all ‘meggy? If he rejected all things omega, he was being a wanna be, and if he embraced them, he was being a wimp.

There’s no winning, Tony decided.

He couldn’t possibly win. All he could do was…

Well, what was the opposite of winning? It certainly wasn’t “doing your best.”

Losers whined about _their best_.

Tony let his face sink into his hands and struggled, valiantly, not to cry.

He lost that battle, too.

With a screech of frustration, the concealer tube went flying across the room.

“Are we having trouble, ducky?” Peggy asked, sticking her head in. Tony was probably the only person on the planet who’d seen Peggy with her victory curls _in fieri,_ so to speak. A hairstyle that was gorgeous, sophisticated and lovely. Also, complicated as hell, involving a ton of pins and a lot of hair product.

“ _We_ are a hopeless case,” Tony wailed. “ _We_ hate being an omega. We just… why couldn’t I have been born beta, they don’t have to deal with any of this shit!”

More cosmetics went to the floor in a rattle of plastic tubes. Perfume, sweet and sticky, rose from one bottle and Tony’s floor was covered in powder and lipstick. Tony practically threw himself onto his bed. Everything felt terrible, horrible, he didn’t like anything, especially himself, and--

“Ug, move,” he said, as his stomach rebelled, flipping sideways. Probably the cloud of perfume smell was getting to him. His nose seemed extra sensitive these days.

Peggy stepped aside and Tony was on his knees in front of the toilet. He breathed in and out of his mouth, swallowing excess saliva, feeling queasy. For a long moment, he thought it was a false alarm. And then he went to get back up, embarrassed at having made a scene, but at least he hadn’t cast up his accounts in front of Peggy, when he did.

Tony had hangovers that hadn’t been so unpleasant. When he was finished chucking all of his crumpets into the toilet, he flushed. The porcelain was cool against his cheek.

“Here, darling, have some water,” Peggy said, putting a large glass near him.

“Thank you,” Tony croaked. “I swear, I’m just a disaster--”

“No, darling, I don’t think so,” Peggy said.

“Seriously, who the hell else would get nerves bad enough to puke just because my mom is coming to dinner?”

“I don’t think it’s nerves.”

“Food poisoning? Great, _even better_.”

 Peggy laid a cool hand against his forehead. “Darling, I think you might be pregnant.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been dealing with some Other Issues (both real life and fandom) and I almost forgot to post this today! Omg! 
> 
> Sorry for the posting delay.
> 
> Content Warning: this chapter uses a lot of humor in a tough situation and contains conversation that might make people uncomfortable. There's a more detailed list of the discussion at the bottom if you want to be prepared or skip out on this chapter.

Tony was surrounded by pregnancy test kits. Yay, Amazon, discreet delivery, two hour Prime Now.

He’d ordered them -- a whole batch of the damn things -- pretty much after Peggy made her prediction. Used his phone and his own account and had to remember to change his address, because while he had been living at Bucky’s place for -- oh, he had to count back on his fingers now, five weeks, had it really been five weeks? -- a while, he’d been relying on his Alpha to pay for everything and to order things that needed ordering.

There was something in the paperwork, hadn’t there been? About an allowance out of Stark funds for the omega, and the care and whatnot?

He was pretty sure he’d read that.

Tony took a few deep breaths.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Bags under his eyes. He needed to apply more of Peggy’s foundation before his mom arrived.

“I am going to pee on this stick,” he told the mirror-Tony firmly. “We do not condone panic at this time.”

Technically, according to all the directions and the various magazines that he read -- and the few online articles -- he didn’t need to save up morning pee; if he was pregnant, he was far enough along that he didn’t need the concentrated urine. That said, he had still been saving up for a few hours. Not drinking extra, because that might dilute it.

Not much time left. His mother was going to be there for dinner in-- Tony checked his phone. Less than two hours, if she was on time.

Which, knowing Maria, she probably wouldn’t be. Because she never was. Maria took the whole _the world waits for an omega_ thing seriously. Too seriously.

At least Tony wasn’t expected to cook. Bucky had gotten some local restaurant to do a catering thing that he was going to pick up and bring back and reheat here. So, he wasn’t in the cabin at the moment, because he was out.

Which made it the perfect time to pee on a stick.

“I’m going to do this,” he said again.

He’d practically had to pry Peggy off to get her to leave and go back to-- wherever it was that she and Steve and the rest of the commandos were staying. It wasn’t far, wherever it was, because they were coming back for dinner.

So, he was alone in the cabin.

And he was going to pee on the stick and find out, for certain, if he was, or was not. Pregnant.

Fuck.

Deep breath. No panicking.

Tony took the stick out of the box, fumbled with the paper instructions that were folded up. He didn’t need to read those, no one read the manual for actual important and complicated stuff like smart televisions. He certainly didn’t need one to pee on a stick.

Wait, was he supposed to actually pee on the stick, or pee in a cup and then put the stick in the cup? It didn’t come with a cup. Was he supposed to pee in a drinking cup? Ew. And would anyone ever use it again? Even if he didn’t tell anyone, _he_ would know. Double ew.

“You’re panicking,” he told himself. Well, he’d try peeing on the stick first. If it didn’t work, he’d find the ugliest cup in Bucky’s cupboard to sacrifice to the cause.

“Or you could just use a paper cup,” he said. “I’m sure we have those, too.”

At some point, he really ought to sit down and read what rights Bucky was entitled to, as Tony’s Alpha, because if Tony was going to be chucking out the crockery, he might need to know how many sets of glasses he was allowed to break.

There was a problem peeing on the stick. His arms weren’t that long. He could hold the stick out, but it wasn’t that far away from the end of his dick, and if he did that, there was going to be a splatter effect.

Tony put the stick on the end of the sink and fiddled in the trash can for the directions.

The picture instructions were easy four steps, which was, hopefully more an indication of the need for an easy process for omegas who were panicking -- but not Tony, Tony was not panicking, there was no panicking going on here! -- and not a slight on the typical omega’s expected reading comprehension. The first one showed the androgynous omega with a little pink smilie face opening the package.

Sitting down to pee, the stick held firmly being the knees, in the toilet.

Oh. Okay. Tony didn’t usually sit to pee, but everyone could sit to pee. He wondered if Bucky sat down to pee.

He wondered why he was wondering that.

Sitting.

Stick between the knees, inside the toilet.

He couldn’t pee.

Seriously? He hadn’t gone to the bathroom before lunch, surely he could squeeze out a few drops.

Maybe he should get the cup after all. At least he’d have enough pee then to test a few times. He didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket, so to speak. He wasn’t sure what the rate of error was on a false positive.

Tony went to stand back up…

And his urine decided that was the perfect time to let go.

He scrambled and got the stick into the stream before it stopped, at least.

Of course, now he had pee all over his hand, too. Yay, why didn’t anyone mention just how much fun this was? The little omega in the picture instructions was smiling down at the test.

Tony stretched his lips into some semblance of a smile, then carefully balanced the test on the edge of the sink. Cleaned up the sprinkle. Got up and washed his hands, not looking at the test.

Dried his hands.

Checked the toilet to make sure he cleaned everything up. He had.

Checked the test.

He couldn’t breathe.

The little cheerful omega in the picture was smiling at the two lines on the test.

Tony never felt less like smiling in his _life_.

It was a positive. He was pretty sure. He looked at the instructions again. One line for negative. Two lines for positive. Even a faint line could be a positive.

He’d never seen two lines that looked less solid in his whole life, either. Those were lines you could build a suspension bridge on, they were that solid.

Pregnant.

He was pregnant.

Probably. The test could give a false positive. False positives were more likely than a false negative. He still didn’t know the margin for error on the test.

He dug around through the instructions again, looking for the tiny print, the details, the manual. No one read the manual, but surely they had one. Didn’t-- ah, there it was.

Three percent.

There was a three percent margin for error. Tony kept reading. The three percent tended to be negative test results with a positive pregnancy, for having not waited long enough past a heat cycle, or for people who diluted their pee by drinking too much before taking the test, or --

A positive pregnancy test was almost always correct.

And he would only get more pregnant with time.

Well, at least until he was Not Pregnant anymore.

Tony found himself sitting on the floor, head leaning back against the cool tiles, staring at the ceiling. He was pregnant.

Which meant--

“Fuck,” he said, thudding his head against the wall. He was pretty sure that wouldn’t hurt the baby. “I have to tell him.”

***

“So, uh, I know we haven’t talked about this, like at all,” Tony said, “but I think we really need to sit down and discuss exactly what we’re looking for in a relationship, and more importantly, the future of that relationship, because… uh. It just got complicated.”

Tony shook his head at the mirror. “Sounds like I’m pitching a merger at him, not talking about a baby.”

He pushed his press smile in place, the one that came complete with shining eyes and dimples. “Hey, Bucky, guess what? We’re going to have a baby, isn’t that lovely?”

He shook his head again, this time so hard he felt like he might give himself whiplash. “No, decidedly not. No… turning all silly. You’re an omega, he’s your Alpha. Everything’s going to be fine. Right?”

_Right?_

He really needed to read that damn bonding contract. He knew that Bucky was responsible for any children they had -- child _ren_. Oh, god. Plural.

Fuck.

Pregnancy wasn’t contained only to heat cycles; there were certainly lots of couples who’d gotten pregnant outside an A/o rut-heat. Look at his own damn parents, for example.

That said, non-heat cycle pregnancies tended to end with one viable embryo.

Heat-rut pregnancies often contained multitudes.

“Okay, seriously, I did not need to think about having a goddamn litter of puppies,” Tony snapped. “I’m an omega, not an _incubator_.”

Two wouldn’t be so bad, would it? He had two arms.

Fuuuuuuuck.

“I’m pregnant,” he said. Flat. Emotionless. Dry. It was information. He was just imparting information to an interested party. That was good. That was okay, that was fine. Do it just like that, everything would be great.

Right?

Right.

He took several gulps of air, trying to steady himself. He’d done his makeup, just right. He’d styled his hair. He was in the outfit that Peggy specifically picked for him, the one that would tell his mother he was all grown up, the one that would tell his Alpha that Bucky had made a good choice. He was perfect.

Everything was going to be--

Bucky stuck his head around the doorframe. “Hey, Tony, does your mom like red wine or--”

Tony burst into tears. “I’m pregnant,” he blurted.

***

Bucky had never really given a lot of consideration to how he was going to feel if he had an omega and then when they got pregnant. He just had assumed he’d be happy about it and moved on with his life. If he’d ever bothered to visualize it at all, he’d imagined sweeping his beloved omega into a tight hug, whirling them around like some Hallmark movie hero. Confessions of love, devotion, joy.

All the sappy, overwhelming nonsense that he’d expected every Alpha would feel.

He had not banked on his omega looking guilty as hell, sobbing helplessly, and panicking.

He’d also not counted on hearing the news and feeling an overwhelming surge of… nothingness.

It was like he took a step outside his body; like what was happening wasn’t happening to him, at all, but to some acquaintance that he didn’t know very well. He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel, so he felt… empty.

Whatever he was feeling, it was the wrong response. Or maybe it was just shock.

Tony took one look at his face, wailed out something that sounded like “You hate me!” or maybe “you hate it!” Bucky wasn’t quite sure, and then covered his face with his hands.

Bucky stood there, frozen into helplessness, pinned down by his own whirring brain and his useless lack of emotions while Tony sobbed and shuddered and--

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Tony was saying, and that spurred Bucky to some action, thank Christ.

“No, no, honey, Tony, come on,” Bucky said. He reached out, hand hovering over Tony’s shoulder, his arm, his head, not quite knowing what to do, or if he should touch Tony at all, and still lost in the whole mess of what he was going to be feeling, once he thawed out enough to be feeling _anything_.

Well, anything about the pregnancy.

He had feelings, very deep feelings, about the omega who was crying like someone just died. That might have been a natural urge -- he was an Alpha, and a crying omega was just something he wanted to _do something about_ , in the same sort of stupid way that Alphas were supposed to want to build things, or break things, or cook outdoors. Whatever.

“Hey, hey, sweetheart,” Bucky said, trying to soothe.

What happened was that he got nearly strangled as Tony gave into an absolute boatload of enthusiastic wailing at that point, complete with flinging himself at Bucky and wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck.

Bucky resisted the urge to look around and see if anyone else was watching them. It all felt very melodramatic and far away and urgent and removed, all at the same time. Tony was talking -- well, bemoaning was more like it -- and Bucky couldn’t understand a word that he was saying, something something bathroom, something something double lines.

“Honey, shhh, just-- just let it out, honey, okay, you want to cry, go ahead and cry, it’s all right, I ain’t judging you.”

Tony pressed a hot, sticky face to the side of Bucky’s neck. Was it selfish of him to notice that Tony wasn’t a very contained mourner? He was loud, he was inconsolable, he was putting off heat like no one’s business, he was moist with sweat and tears, and he was all pointy elbows and sharp angles.

Bucky managed to nudge him in the direction of Tony’s bed; that was another thing that was weird and selfish and self-centered. They hadn’t been sleeping together since the… incident. Bucky had made up a bed in the guest room and offered it in case Tony wanted to… and Tony had accepted that offer. They didn’t talk about it, so Bucky didn’t know, not for sure, if Tony wanted to be alone, or if he thought Bucky wanted to be alone, or… what.

He didn’t know.

Gingerly, he managed to get Tony onto the bed, and then himself and he sat, leaned against the headboard, while Tony cried and spluttered and coughed. There was a box of tissues in reach, and while Bucky recovered a few of them for Tony’s use, he wasn’t sure they were doing much good.

Finally, Tony’s wild sobbing was down to the occasional shuddering breath and hiccup. Bucky got him another tissue, absentmindedly noticing that maybe, if Tony was going to cry so much, Peggy might want to buy him some waterproof mascara.

“Okay,” Bucky said. “So like… where are you on this, Tony? I mean…”

“I just found out,” Tony said. He pointed back toward his bathroom. “Peed on the stick. I mean, it could be… a fluke or something. I’ll… if there’s… doctor’s exam? Blood test, maybe, I think they’re more accurate, I read that somewhere, I’m sure.”

“Shhh. I don’t… I mean, yeah. They say you don’t get knocked up on the first heat, but I think we all know that’s not true,” Bucky said. “And, first heat. Most people aren’t on any sort of birth control, so. Yeah, pregnancy. It’s not surprising.”

Which did not mean it wasn’t a surprise, because it _was_.

“Are you mad?” Tony asked in this tentative tone that just about broke Bucky’s heart.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky said, because that was true. He didn’t think he was mad. He wasn’t positive, however, because he still couldn’t figure out _what_ he felt. He’d almost like someone to tell him what they thought he should be feeling, so he could decide if he felt that way or not.

“You don’t think you’re mad?” Tony’s look of disbelief was priceless and Bucky had to turn a laugh into a cough. He didn’t think he was very successful with that.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, finally. “I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise, but I am surprised, and… I don’t know what I’m feeling, and you’re… well, I had other priorities aside from what I’m feeling. You tell me what you’re thinking and maybe I can figure it out as we go.”

“Your feelings aren’t a priority?”

“Obviously my feelings matter, Tony,” Bucky said, taking a few breaths and trying to remember what his Ma always said about not ever, ever saying that an omega was being hysterical, or overreacting, even if they were, because it was absolutely the worst thing he could say. _Ever_. ”But I can only deal with what I can see, and right now, that’s you, bein’ upset. So, let’s deal with this thing one step at a time, okay? Okay, honey?”

Tony was practically cradled in his lap and Bucky rubbed little circles on his back, trying to soothe him. It was nice, being able to touch. Tony’d been a little touch-shy for a while, which was only reasonable. Except Bucky still didn’t know which, of a wide variety of possibilities, was causing it. He didn’t even know if he was making it better or worse by respecting Tony’s need to keep some distance.

 _Nothing exists in a vacuum,_ he sighed.

“I’m pregnant,” Tony said, again, with a hiccup.

There was that weird disconnect again, like this was something happening to someone else.

 _It is happening to someone else, you asshole,_ he told himself firmly _. It’s happening to Tony and you want Tony to be happy._

“Okay,” Bucky said. “I believe you. I mean, we can get the doctor test, or you can pee on as many sticks as you want, I’m… I want to stand with you, honey. Whatever you want to do.”

Tony made another one of those little hiccupy sounds. “What… what are you talking about?”

“I mean it,” Bucky said, and he took one of Tony’s hands and held it, gripped light, between his, feeling Tony with his human fingers, his flesh and blood, and feeling him with the electronic nerves and pressure sensors of the prosthetic. Somehow, Tony’s palm seemed to act like a connection between the two halves of Bucky; the human half, and the _other._ “This has been a rough couple of weeks for you, baby. I know. So much to get used to, and so much has changed, and… I know you’re unhappy about what happened, and God, I wish to hell that I could help you. I won’t… I ain’t… if you don’t want this baby, Tony, I will help you. I’ll stand by you, no matter what.”

The shock on Tony’s face could have powered the cabin for a few days. “Alpha.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, just Bucky. I’m not actin’ in any official capacity about this right now, honey. I’m… if you don’t want to have the baby, I’ll take care of that. And you. And if you want to have the baby, but not keep it, that’s an option, too.”

Tony wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and sniffled loudly. “What do you want?”

“I want-- I need for you to be safe,” Bucky said. “And well cared for. An’ happy. Ain’t none of this been easy on you. You ended up with an Alpha that wasn’t your choice--”

“That’s not true,” Tony said.

“Compared to Rumlow, honey? You didn’t have a lot of choices. I don’t want to take any more of them away from you. You’ve been through some rough road, and if you don’t want to take on this responsibility, I sure as hell ain’t gonna make you.”

“But?”

“But if you do want this baby, if you… if you want to be a parent, then I will kick down the gates of hell itself to make sure it goes as smooth as it can, to make sure you’re happy and healthy and that the baby is happy and healthy, and I will love this baby, I promise,” Bucky said.

Tony started crying again, but this time it didn’t set off all of Bucky’s panic alarms. Tony was crying with _relief_.

“We got a bit of time to sort this out,” Bucky said. “But what we ain’t got… is time right now. Your mama’s still gonna be here for dinner, and you--”

“Look like shit,” Tony finished.

“You are always beautiful,” Bucky told him. “And I always love to look at you. But right now, there’s questions you might not want to talk about with your mom if you still look like you been sobbin’ your eyes out when she gets here.”

“Christ, no,” Tony said, and he used his whole t shirt to wipe his face, which left interested wet marks and mascara smudges all over everything, face and shirt both.

“Hop in th’ shower then, an’ try to relax, honey. We can--”

“Table this discussion for later?”

“Something like that,” Bucky told him. He kissed Tony’s wet cheek, trying to be reassuring, and then Tony shifted, just a little.

Bucky was kissing Tony’s mouth, salty with tears, and it was wonderful. God, he’d missed his omega, even though Tony had been right there the whole time.

“You… uh, you wanna take a shower with me?”

Bucky snorted, despite the jolt of heat and wanting that went through him. “Your mother is coming over.”

“We’ll tell her to come back later,” Tony said, twining his arms around Bucky’s neck and attempting to put on his come hither face. It wasn’t entirely sexy, more like needy and wanting reassurance. But if what Tony wanted was reassurance that his Alpha still wanted him, still cared about him, still wanted… the bond, the relationship, the baby, all of it, yes, Bucky wanted all of it, but Tony most of all.

“She--”

“-- can wait,” Tony said. “She’s an omega herself. She’ll understand.”

Bucky tucked his nose against Tony’s neck for the first time since Rumlow died, breathed in deep. He could scent the other Alpha in Tony’s smell, and that would only get more obvious as a pregnancy progressed. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad smell, as long as Bucky worked to suppress his more basic nature, the part of him that wanted to snarl at another Alpha, the part that wanted to posture and beat his chest and generally act like an animal.

 _I am more than my instincts_ , Bucky told himself firmly.

Tony had gone just a little stiff in his arms, waiting, Bucky thought to see if he would be rejected.

“She can wait,” Bucky decided. He took another deep breath, and then licked Tony’s neck. Tony’s skin still tasted like Tony, and Tony still shivered in his embrace. “If you want me, I’m yours.”

“ _Alpha_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After Tony confesses his pregnancy, he and Bucky discuss options, including both abortion and adoption. This conversation is left a little open ended, because Maria is still coming to dinner. 
> 
> Next chapter will be some shower sex to reconfirm their attachment to each other; intimacy, especially physical intimacy (even if that's just cuddling and handholding and hugs) is important in a functional relationship, which is what Bucky desperately wants, and what Tony does want (even if he doesn't quite understand what he wants yet.) Bucky is all in, but knows that Tony's been desperately traumatized and is trying to help with that as much as he knows how and Tony will let him.
> 
> But the chapter after this will be getting down to the nitty gritty as Tony and his Alpha discuss what they're ACTUALLY going to do about Tony's pregnancy. If in-depth conversations of these subjects is a trigger with you, this is probably the point to drop out. If you want a high end sketch of what WILL happen so you can get through the conversation with goal in mind, let me know.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the smut adverse, skip to the end of the chapter for a quick summary (there's some plot in here, too, but it's all mixed up)

Tony had done a lot of crazy things that annoyed his parents, both before and after presenting Omega when he was barely nine. Maria had worried that there was something in the water making children mature too fast, and Howard had just rolled his eyes in disgust and gone about the business of trying to get Maria pregnant again. The hoped-for Alpha child never arrived, and Tony had ignored the whole process as thoroughly as possible.

And yet, the stupidest thing he’d ever done, they’d never found out about. The summer he had turned eleven, he’d been introduced to Ty Stone. Ty had been another early presenter and only three years older than Tony, handsome and smart, and well-spoken. His parents owned Viastone, and a merger of the empires would have pretty much put any other tech and weapons companies off the map. Later, Tony had realized that his parents had introduced him, not to give Tony a friend and companion, but as a tentative gesture toward a merger. Tony hadn’t liked Ty particularly much, which wouldn’t have mattered at all, probably. But nothing had ever came of it.

Ty had dared him to prove himself, to prove himself worthy of being Ty’s omega. Omegas, he’d said, were cowards. Tony didn’t like Ty, but he didn’t want to back down, either. Tony had actually crossed _under_ a bridge, forty feet from the water, clinging to the iron girders, using the two inches of beam and a death grip on one of the cables to balance himself. He had gotten cuts on his hands from squeezing the steel. Tony had gotten about halfway over the river, staring down at the rocks and rapids below him, when the whole world had moved dizzily under his body. The water absolutely would not have saved him, if he’d fallen.

He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about it right then, as his Alpha was helping him undress, practically holding him up, and depositing little kisses all over Tony’s neck and face.

But maybe the rush of the shower water and the way his muscles seized up, not being able to tell the difference between fear and excitement… the way he’d frozen, straddling the very line between death and life. There’d been no one to catch him, then. No support, no encouragement. Just a taunting bully who’d-- well, to be fair, Ty probably had assumed Tony would be too scared to try it. By the time Tony made it to the other side, Ty was the one shaking and scared.

“What would happen to me if you fell?” Ty had demanded. “You absolute idiot, you reckless fool, you--”

_What if I fall?_

Tony looked up at Bucky, who drew back just a little to meet his gaze.

Bucky would catch him.

Bucky, who’d gone back to nosing at Tony’s throat, exploring an apparently delicious patch of skin just below Tony’s ear and was licking it, was his Alpha. Bucky was taking care of him.

“You take good care of me,” Tony said, arching into the heat of Bucky’s mouth. And Bucky did, that was the thing, he did, and Tony was barely noticing it, because he was so caught up in being on the bridge and staring down at the water that he… he missed it?

“Want to, doll,” Bucky told him. “Treat you so right, make you feel good. Safe. Loved.”

Tony shivered under that, not sure if Bucky even knew what he’d just said, or if he’d said it off-hand, casual, the heat of the moment kind of love that wasn’t love at all, but just sex drive and babbling.

He could stop, point it out, ask questions. Really dig into what was going on in Bucky’s mind--

Bucky ran his hand down Tony’s side, palm sliding against wet skin as he guided Tony into the shower, and as Tony moved into the shower, Bucky cupped his ass, fingers teasing against the curve of his buttock.

Tony couldn’t help the burst of heat against his skin, the way everything in him clenched up at the soft caress. Or, he could wait, talk later. Fuck now. Bucky and his feelings would still be there _after_ sex.

He wasn’t expecting it. Not really.

Theoretically, Tony knew sex outside of heat was good. In theory. In practice, and after everything that had happened, Tony wasn’t sure if he’d ever want another person to touch him again. But Bucky wasn’t just someone else, he was… well, he was Bucky, and he was Tony’s Alpha.

No matter that Tony smelled like Rumlow, that maybe the pregnancy would be harder than it needed to be, because Tony’s body thought Rumlow was his Alpha. Tony knew the truth. Bucky was always going to be there for him, was always going to catch him. Would be Tony’s Alpha for as long as Tony wanted him, and not a single second longer.

Because out of everyone Tony had ever met, Bucky seemed like the only one who considered Tony a person first, and a possession not at all.

To some degree, it seemed, to Tony, that Bucky belonged to him, rather than the other way ‘round.

And… Bucky went to his knees in the shower, like some sort of subservient god, kissing Tony’s stomach, hips, explored the inside of his navel with a probing tongue-- which tickled and thrilled at the same time, making him squirm backward in the shower until his ass hit the tiles, and the wall held him up, and his hands went helplessly into Bucky’s wet hair to hold him, to keep him doing what he was doing.

“You want me to?”

Bucky took Tony’s groan of need for enthusiastic consent, which was good, because Tony wasn’t sure he could actually _form words_.

During Tony’s heat, Bucky had fucked him thoroughly, with a great deal of imagination and enthusiasm, rutting together like animals.

Post-heat sex was teasing, gentle, drawn out. He licked at Tony’s cock, sucked him back until he nearly came, and then eased off until he wasn’t doing much aside from flicking droplets of water off with his tongue.

Tony wanted to get on with it, he wanted it to last forever. It was heaven and hell and all the planes of existence in between. Bucky didn’t seem particularly urgent either. Tony’d messed around with Alphas before, but they’d always seemed to go right for it, without a lot of concern for Tony’s pleasure.

Bucky, on the other hand, aggressively pursued Tony’s pleasure, wringing moans and swears out of him with an expert hand. And mouth. And cock.

He rubbed them both together in the heat and wet of the shower, rolling his hips against Tony’s with slow deliberateness, stropping them together, velvet friction.

Whether by some sort of telepathic connection, higher brain functions, or just common sense, Bucky seemed to know that Tony wasn’t ready for the sort of positions that would have Bucky poised over him, or pinning him in. He kept his grip gentle, his body low, as if trying to be shorter or smaller than Tony was. Harmless. But also, worshipping Tony’s body with his mouth and hands. Bringing Tony up, and then keeping him there.

Tony was all but sobbing with need when Bucky stroked him, slow and gentle at first, but instead of backing off, he increased speed, the squeeze of his hand at the end a welcoming clench around Tony’s cock.

He kept pushing up onto his toes, like he could get closer, higher, and it drew out until--

“Oh, oh, _oh_!” Tony’s head went back against the tiles with a sharp rap that he barely even noticed as everything squeezed and pushed, and thrust out, like every cell in his body contracted, and then expanded. The relief was so great, he could have sobbed, the backlash of emotion and sensation so powerful that he would have crumpled to the floor if Bucky wasn’t holding him up.

He came like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle; his come splattering against Bucky’s hand, and belly, dripped down his thigh before being washed away by the still-running shower.

Tony was barely awake as Bucky rinsed him off, tucked him in a towel, and carried him back to bed. It was only when Tony shifted a little in Bucky’s grip that he realized Bucky’s erection wasn’t flagging a bit. That Bucky had done everything -- everything -- for Tony, and for Tony alone. A brief spurt of guilt bit at him, and when Bucky laid him down on the bed, Tony managed to roll over to show off his ass.

“Alpha?”

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be relieved that Bucky hadn’t fucked him, worried that Bucky didn’t want to, or what? Guilt, too, because that always seemed to follow Tony around like an over-eager puppy. Pointing out that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t like other omegas, wasn’t…

“Hey, no, baby,” Bucky told him. “I’m good.”

“But you--” Tony pointed, as if Bucky wasn’t aware of his own neglected cock. There was something in him that felt like he should do something about that, and then that… _obligation_ was about to turn sour on him, ruin all his good feelings.

“I want _you_ to feel good,” Bucky said, easily. He didn’t seem angry. Or impatient. Just loving and sweet and supportive.

Tony struggled with the concept; wanted to reject it. Everything in his past had always said that nothing came without a cost, that Tony was expected to have a purpose, that he was required, that-- “I can do something about it,” Tony offered. And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to, because Bucky was beautiful, and he’d been sweet to Tony. But he also didn’t want to do it if he had to. If it was tit for tat, it it was quid pro quo. Something for something. Nothing for nothing.

“You could,” Bucky said. “An’ so can I. Ain’t a big deal, baby. I don’t… Tony, I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do.” Those blue eyes were huge, luminous, filled with emotion. And Bucky was still… not expecting anything from him.

“I don’t,” Tony said, and then he coughed, his throat unexpectedly getting tight on him. “I don’t know how many times you’re going to have to say that.” It was an apology, and not a very good one. _I don’t believe you. I’ve been shown too many times that I can’t trust… anyone._

Except maybe he could. Maybe he could trust Bucky. Maybe Bucky really meant it. He wasn’t like anyone that Tony had ever met before. Grateful, Tony cupped Bucky’s face. Leaned in to kiss him. Bucky’s skin was a little chilled from being in the shower and then air drying. He tasted like water.

“If you don’t want to,” Bucky said, shifting back.

“Maybe I do.”

***

_Tony had walked into the room, dressed to the nines, traditional omega clothing, heels, his face was contoured within an inch, his facial hair neat and tidy. His hair was messy-on-purpose instead of just messy._

_He had looked amazing. Practically sparkling with life and delight and Bucky hadn’t been able to help the way his whole body turned, the way he had been drawn to his omega like steel to a magnet. He knew Tony had feelings about being omega, and a lot of them involved not acting like some fluffbutter silly idiot._

_Which was not a thing you said to Peggy Carter unless you were tired of living._

_Peggy weaponized omega cliches, and she got her own damn way about most things. She was smart, she was tough, she was beautiful. A force to be reckoned with. And she truly believed Tony could be the same._

_She’d shooed Tony back into the bedroom to change again -- he had been giving a little show of the new clothes he and Peggy had picked out -- and had scowled at Bucky._

_“Why aren’t you telling him how nice he looks?”_

_“He does look nice,” Steve had admitted, as if he were being stretched on the rack and Bucky hadn’t been sure if that was because Steve didn’t like to admit interest in another omega, because Tony was Bucky’s omega, or because his own omega was right there in the room. In any case, Bucky had to fight down a surge of irrational jealousy._

_“Because I don’t reckon I want him to change what he is to meet some unrealistic expectation,” Bucky had said. “‘Specially not if he’s doin’ it to please me. He already pleases me, jus’ the way he is.”_

_“James Barnes, you are allowed to want things, just for yourself sometimes. Enjoy having a beautiful omega. It’s a gift,” Peggy had said, hands on her hips. “Now tell him he looks nice, or you’re going to hurt his feelings.”_

_Tony already was a gift, Bucky had thought. And he always looks nice._

***

Tony put a hand on Bucky’s aching dick and stroked it a few times. His hand was softer, post shower, than usual, and it was a delicious, silken temptation.

“God, you _are_ beautiful,” Bucky told his omega, staring at Tony, who was laying over Bucky’s thighs. Tony’s eyes were still red-rimmed from his weeping, although the shower had helped with the puffiness and gotten rid of the mascara smudges all over his cheeks. He practically glittered, even without any makeup at all.

Tony paused, head tilting to one side. “Do you really think that?”

Bucky couldn’t help the moan that forced its way out of his throat. “Honey, you’re naked an’ perfect, an’ telling me _you_ want _me_. Don’t that make you just the prettiest thing ever?”

Tony didn’t stop touching him, which was both nice and exceptionally damn distracting. “You know you’re like… the perfect Alpha, right?” He leaned down, breath ghosting over Bucky’s cock. “Shhh, don’t argue with me about it. I think you’re amazing. You’re generous --” he lowered his head again and licked a wet stripe right up Bucky’s shaft. “-- and I’m not just talking about money, I’ve got money, but you’re generous with your time. You let me do what I want, and you don’t even give me any shit about it. You may be the first damn Alpha I ever met who’s just happy when _I’m_ happy.” Tony closed his mouth over the head of Bucky’s cock and sucked, wet and hot and perfect.

Bucky arched up, teeth biting into his lower lip. Tony’s mouth was some sort of perfect sin, exquisitely fine and expertly wielded. Bucky was positive that he could be convinced to murder, just by that mouth. “‘Course I’m happy when you-- oh, Christ, Tony, how d’you expect me to think when you’re doing that?”

“I don’t,” Tony replied. He twisted his hand up, using his own spit to slick the way, stroking Bucky in time with some inescapable rhythm in his head. “You’re amazing. You’re seriously, _unfairly_ beautiful. Smart. Kind. You’re protective as hell when you need to be, and do you have any idea what it’s like, being in the middle of something that bad and looking up to realize that your Alpha is there? Like knight on a white horse amounts of incredible.”

Bucky squirmed. He’d _failed_ to protect Tony, and here Tony was heaping accolades on him that he didn’t deserve.

“Stop that,” Tony told him. “You saved me, and since I’m the one saved, I think I get to define it my way. Do you know how many Alphas would have kicked me right to the curb after Rumlow bit me?”

“That’s a low bar to get over,” Bucky protested. “Great, I’m not a douche, go me.”

“ _Go you_ is exactly right,” Tony said, fierce and angry, even though he didn’t stop what he was doing, and Bucky was having a hard time maintaining any sort of coherent thought. “You saved me. And you keep saving me. Every day I wake up and you still want me here? That’s saving me. You wanting --” he twisted his hand at the end of the stroke, sending a sizzle of heat through Bucky’s spine “--this? That’s saving me. _You still want me_. You think that doesn’t mean anything? You think that doesn’t matter to me? _It does._ The first thing you do when I tell you I’m knocked up? Is comfort me? Bucky, you’re so damn perfect, it’s unreal. How do you even exist?”

Tears prickled at Bucky’s eyes. “I don’t deserve you.”

“And I don’t deserve you either,” Tony said. “But here we are. And we both want each other, right?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever wanted before.”

_You are allowed to want things, James Barnes._

“And I want you,” Tony said. “And I’m going to take a wild leap here and say, maybe we should just _have_ each other.”

Bucky might have had a response to that, but Tony just gave him a sly wink and then opened his mouth and took Bucky down to the root.

Holy shit, that was amazing. A slick, wet inferno of sensation and then he swallowed, a ripple of motion along Bucky’s dick.

Bucky had to grip both hands in the sheets to keep from thrusting up into that inviting heat. He let his eyes slip shut, remembering Tony in the height of his rut, poised above Bucky like a miracle, hands on Bucky’s chest to keep his balance, back arched like a mermaid breaching.

Bucky shuddered all over. “Tony--”

Coming for his omega was the sweetest thing. Bucky cried out with the force of it as everything inside him contracted and then expanded. Like the death of the universe in a single second. A point of bliss that couldn’t be contained.

“Jesus, Tony,” Bucky managed to say, even though all his limbs had decided to go on strike. He was practically a puddle in the bed, Tony sprawled on top of him.

Tony wiped his chin self consciously, then grinned. “Thank you,” he said.

What? “What? I should… damn, I feel like I ought to applaud or somethin’, and I might just, if I can get my arms working again,” Bucky said.

Tony actually laughed at that, and it was the first time Bucky’d heard that sound since before the Rumlow incident. The knot that had taken up residence in his chest in place of his heart untwisted a little at the sound. Tony was _healing_. He was healing, and Bucky was helping, and if that wasn’t a relief, Bucky didn’t know what was. “Nah, not for the blowjob, that was my pleasure,” Tony said. “I mean… everything. Thanks for being understanding, and for… just everything. Look, I know we can’t talk about this now, but… I want you to know. I’m not… you know. Adverse to extending the contract. If you want.”

***

Tony tried not to hold his breath. Why the fuck did he say that, why did he admit that, why… why now?

He was high on sex hormones and dopamine and feeling snuggly with his Alpha. Because Bucky was his Alpha, no matter what his scent said. And Tony…

… loved him.

_Loved him?_

He was breathing, carefully, in and out, trying not to read anything into Bucky’s sudden, shocked silence.

It was a bad time, it was a bad time to spring that on him, right after the pregnancy announcement and the whole reaffirming their relationship thing. It was too soon, it was too much, and Tony might as well have taken out an advertisement in the paper.

Tony loves Bucky, news at eleven.

Bucky’s eyes were wide, and so, so very blue.

“Yeah?” Bucky said, and he cupped his hand, that metal hand that fascinated Tony, and that made his Alpha unique and amazing and utterly unlike anyone else’s, against Tony’s cheek. That was good, right? That soft look, that gentle touch.

“Yes,” Tony repeated. “If you’ll have me.”

“I want you,” Bucky said, repeating Tony’s words back to him, “and you want me. And here we are.”

“And here we are.”

There was a knock on the door. Probably Peggy and Steve, since Maria always tended to be late. But it did mean they had to roll out of bed and chase down some clothes--

“Tony--” Bucky reached out and snagged Tony’s hand, dropping a kiss against his palm.

“Yes, Alpha?”

“I’m already yours,” Bucky told him. “I am all in, for as long as you want me.”

_I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony thinks about bravery and being an Omega, and some stupid stuff he did when he was younger with Ty.
> 
> Bucky talks Tony through the whole sexy times, emphasizing Tony's agency and ability to say no at any time, up to and including bringing Tony to orgasm and letting Bucky deal with his own pleasure.
> 
> Bucky remembers admiring Tony in his traditional omega clothes and feeling guilty about it. Peggy sets him straight, and then they get back to the smuts, with Tony telling BUCKY that he's allowed to want things, and that he's been a good Alpha.
> 
> Tony suggests they extend the Alpha contract, or sign a new one after the current one expires. It's not quite a declaration of love, but Tony realizes what he feels, finally.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. I'm out of town and I had some trouble with the posting from my phone. If you see errors, let me know and I'll fix them tomorrow.
> 
> Content warning: Frank discussion of abortion as a medical decision.

If there was an omega less like Peggy Carter, Bucky hadn’t thought to imagine it. Right up until he met Maria Stark.

Where Peggy was stylish, her outfits put together in such a manner that spoke of subtle power, Maria was a hundred percent society matron.

She couldn’t have looked more like a media presentation instead of a person without slapping a glossy coating to her skin.

There wasn’t a hair out of place, her face was practically poreless, and her clothing tailored to an inch of its life. She wasn’t exuding sex appeal and competence, the way Peggy did, or trying-my-best-even-if-I-don’t-want-to that was Bucky’s own omega. Maria Stark resembled, most closely, the sort of helpless, _do things for me, you big Alpha you,_ madonna with an infant appeal.

Bucky took one look at her, and remembering the ball of aggression that was Howard Stark, and started seriously considering the idea that babies might come from under cabbage leaves. Despite the obvious stamp of Howard’s features on Tony’s face, or the delicate bone structure of Maria’s hands, Tony was so much his own person, completely different from his parents, Bucky wasn’t sure that he wasn’t some sort of fairy changeling child.

“Darling,” Maria said, and she had that maternal air about her. Bucky practically expected the birds to start singing and the local wildlife to offer to do the dishes. “It’s so good to see you again.” She fussed over Tony’s outfit and makeup and hair, arranging his hair in a slightly more tidy coif, brushing her hands down the front of his shirt and over his shoulders like he was wrinkled.

Across the room, Peggy raised an eyebrow and there was just the slightest tension in her jaw. She’d done pretty good, getting Tony ready to see his mother, after the crying and the comforting and the sex, and then another bout of not-morning sickness. Maria’s fussing was putting Peggy on edge. Great. Meeting the inlaws was never going to go smoothly, but it seemed that Bucky was going to be on the outs with his extended family, no matter what he did.

Fuck it.

“Good evening, Mrs. Stark,” Bucky said, offering a hand as soon as she stepped back from Tony. Might as well get it started, because fastest done was begun. As Bucky’s mother used to say.

Of course, Ma Barnes had been a beta, Bucky’s father a beta. Having an Alpha child out of nowhere had surprised them both; the Barnes’ had been nothing but beta for generations. Some wild card ancestor, Bucky thought, had made him what he was.

No wonder he didn’t know how to keep his status as an Alpha.

“Mr. Barnes,” Maria said. She glanced at him, those eyes which were soft, mossy green and nothing like Tony’s deep brown velvet. With a single glance, she seemed to asses everything from the value of his clothes to the suitability of the match. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, at last.”

At last? Well, Bucky supposed that the way he and Tony had gone about their contract wasn’t the usual method at all, and that Maria would have been expecting to meet her child’s bondmate well before the contract was actually signed.

“Tony’s said nothing but good things about you,” Bucky said, which was actually true, in that Tony said almost nothing about his parents at all, but what little he’d mentioned seemed to indicate that Tony held Maria in some sort of respectful awe. The way people felt about their gods.

And if Maria was Tony’s god, than Howard was decidedly his demon.

Maria sniffed. “Well, of course he has,” she said, and she shrugged her expensive coat down her shoulders with one of those mind your manners glares that Bucky’s own Ma had been particularly good at.

“Let me get your coat,” Bucky said, hastily, “and Tony can take you on through to the living room.” Not, he suspected, that Maria did anything as plebeian as “live” in a room. She probably had parlors and sitting rooms and libraries and studies. When she bothered to sit at all. Tony had said his mother was very big into society, participating in art shows and theater and ballet, in charity events and donation balls.

Most of Maria’s conversation was either concern for Tony’s well being in such spartan and inelegant surroundings, or ondits about people Bucky never even heard of, and if Tony knew them at all, he didn’t care about what they were doing, or who had a baby, or the latest society scandal.

Despite that, Bucky mostly held his own, sharing military stories with Steve, or letting Peggy talk about her government contracts, which seemed, at least, to impress Maria. It was, he figured, as good as it was going to get, really.

He wasn’t poor, but Bucky was low status. He had his own land and his own home, and he lived well enough. Which was never going to be even in the same sliver of space on a Venn Diagram as the Starks.

The way Tony squeezed his hand when they finally went in to dinner was enough of a reminder. _This is where I want to be, this is where I chose to be._

Tony had talked, very briefly, about extending their contract.

Bucky wondered if Maria would allow it. She seemed more interested in Bucky’s lack of place in society than Howard.

Watching Tony try to do all the things that a good omega was supposed to do -- he wasn’t entirely sure why, maybe acting more omega-like was supposed to make Maria think that Bucky was a good influence -- made Bucky feel oddly indulgent. He would have offered to help, he didn’t think it made him any less Alpha to carry trays out into the dining room, or do more than just tip Maria’s chair in, or pour wine, but Peggy glared daggers at him when he even seemed to think about standing up.

Her back was up, Bucky realized. She was trying to score some obscure point against Tony’s mom, and Tony was absolutely backing Peggy’s play. If they couldn’t impress Maria, she wasn’t worth impressing.

Bucky was impressed, at least.

Not with Maria, mind. Or even with Peggy and Tony being everything gracious as hosting omegas, but Tony’s efforts to please.

When Tony finished pouring a glass of wine for his mother, and sat down, Bucky nudged him under the table.  _ I’m here for you. _

Maria made a long, drawn out, boring sort of toast, and Bucky raised a glass, adding, “and to Tony.”

Tony barely wet his lips with the wine. There was something about that, the caution and the refusal to do anything that might endanger the baby -- baby, Bucky still couldn’t wrap his head around that idea -- made Bucky think Tony might have already made up his mind.

“To our  _ family _ ”, Bucky said, and tipped the glass in Tony’s direction. 

It could have meant anything; the bond itself made Bucky a temporary, at least, member of the Stark’s family.

But Tony knew what Bucky meant.

Bucky finished off his glass of wine and when Maria wasn’t looking, he swapped it out for Tony’s glass. 

“Thank you,” Tony mouthed at him.

Bucky would be a fool to drink too much while trying to entertain Tony’s mom, but leaving the glass untouched in front of Tony’s plate… might as well have been taking out an advertisement.

“Did you help with the cookery,” Maria wondered, taking a bite of an eggplant dish.

“No,” Tony said, flatly. “As a matter of fact, we had the food brought in from a takeaway place.”

Peggy coughed into her napkin and Bucky almost choked on his wine.

“Delightful,” Maria said. “At least your allowance will allow your Alpha to be well fed.”

Bucky hitched in a breath. “As it happens,” Bucky said, keeping his voice low, and pleasant, “I do find Tony a delight. And what time he does not spend in the kitchen is time better spent.”

Maria didn’t gasp or look horrified, or clutch her pearls or anything that Bucky might have expected. She actually laughed, good-natured and pleasant. “I am, as it happens, pleased to hear it. I hadn’t hoped that Anthony would be fortunate enough to find an indulgent Alpha, willing to allow him his hobbies and pursuits, but he would never be happy with such a one.”

Tony scowled. “I am happy,” he said, all but grinding his teeth into powder.

“Yes, darling,” Maria said. “And you do show it, even if you’re upset that I’m tweaking your Alpha. A big, brawny fellow, too. You’ve done very well for yourself, Anthony. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Bucky shook his head. Maybe, meeting the inlaws wasn’t going to be a total disaster.

*** 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Bucky said, as Maria’s car pulled out of the drive.

“Are you even kidding?” Tony stared at him, trying not to blink too much because the stupid fake eyelashes that he was wearing felt like they were about ready to pop off completely and that would just be an amazingly awkward way to end what had been an exceptionally unpleasant sort of evening.

Well, somewhat.

His mom had been slightly more maternal than usual. Actually said she was proud, although she seemed to be more proud of Tony for picking a good Alpha than anything else.

And Tony wasn’t about to say that Bucky wasn’t a good Alpha, but really.

Tony hadn’t had anything to do with it, really.

It wasn’t anything but  _ luck _ . 

Bad luck or good luck, Tony didn’t even know. It wasn’t like he didn’t like Bucky, because he did. And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to stay with Bucky, because he did.

He just wished, maybe a little, it had anything to do with Tony Stark at all, and not just him managing to trip and fall face first into something good without even knowing, really, how it had happened.

“I’m not,” Bucky said. “But you seem to think something else happened. Wanna break it down for me? She’s your Ma, not mine.”

“She would have a collective apoplexy at someone calling her ‘Ma’ to start with,” Tony said. Maria was Mother, or sometimes  _ Mama _ , if his Italian accent was on point.

“I was calling her Mrs. Stark,” Bucky said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“She certainly didn’t invite you to call her familiarly,” Tony said, deflating again. Maria had said she was proud and impressed, and she put on a good show, but all Starks put on a show. That was what they did. Put on shows. Maria’s how was look how  _ pretty and smart my family is, don’t you envy me, darling?  _ If we pretend everything is great hard enough, maybe it will be.

“It’s only a first meeting,” Bucky said. “She’ll warm up to me. Or she won’t. To be honest, babydoll, it don’t matter, not one little bit. You’re a legal adult, your name is on the paperwork. I could toiletpaper your Ma’s fancy mansion and there’s nothing she can do to take you away, unless you want to go.”

The incongruity of a stupid kid-prank like toilet papering the house combined with Stark Mansion was so ridiculous that Tony couldn’t help but snort, and the snorting led to giggling, and the giggles led to out and out guffawing until Tony was half bent over, clinging to Bucky’s metal arm for support until there were tears rolling down his cheeks.

And there went the eyelashes, onto the floor like a couple of murdered spiders.

“We sho-ou-ou-ould totally do that, oh my  _ god _ , she would freak out so bad,” Tony gasped.

“Put a potato in her muffler?” Bucky suggested, because really, Tony’s Alpha was just that kind of immature. God, Tony thought he might be in love.

“Roach silhouettes on the lamps--” Tony managed. He pushed at the eyelashes, wondering if he could get them off the floor before Bucky noticed.

Probably not; he still had one set on and  _ Clockwork Orange _ hadn’t been the style in decades.

“Glitter,” Bucky declared, “glitter is a great prank. I’ve made greeting cards like that, that explode confetti.”

“That’s just more work for the maids,” Tony said, getting himself under control finally. Mostly. He was still panting for air. “Look, my eyelashes fell off.” Might as well just go ahead and get it out in the open.

“Ah, I wondered,” Bucky said. He scooped them off the floor. “We’re okay, Tony. Everything’s gonna be fine. Even if your eyelashes end up in the soup.”

“Waiter, there’s a --” Tony cracked up again. His sides ached, his head was pounding, but oh, oh, god, he felt so much better. Bucky could make the most anxiety-inducing shit light hearted. It had to be a gift, really.

Finally, Tony straightened up and changed his grip on Bucky from grasping to caressing. “You’re, uh, the best. I don’t-- I don’t know how I’d be handling any of this without your help.”

Bucky cupped Tony’s cheek with that metal hand, the small plates in his fingers clicking gently. “That’s what I’m here for, baby. Anything you need, you just say the word.”

Tony swallowed, leaning into that touch. “Uh, now that Mom’s gone, and, you know-- did you want to talk about…?” Tony left it hanging, still not really sure he could say the words  _ the pregnancy,  _ or worse, _ the baby, _ without bursting into tears again.

“Well, I did some thinkin’, an’ made a few calls while you were getting ready,” Bucky said. He tugged lightly and pulled Tony into the living room. “I can tell you we have some time, nothing needs to be decided tonight.”

“No, yeah, I know,” Tony said, wiping at his eyes. There was a darkish smear on the back of his hand, and Tony was probably giving his best imitation of a trash panda. “Like… yeah. There’s time. Before anything happens that’s, you know, no going back from.”

“I think the first thing we should do is get one of those doctors to test you,” Bucky said. “Just in case, get you all looked over and make sure you’re healthy. I mean, that’ll factor into things, so we might as well get it out of the way. I got an appointment for you, but if there’s a doctor you--”

“God, no,” Tony said, the back of his neck heating. He really could not see going to Doctor Erskine with this, his pediatrician. It had been bad enough going to him the first time he went into heat for suppressants and symptom remedials. He did not want to talk to the doctor who’d seen him through chickenpox and his broken fingers about his possible  _ pregnancy _ . “Whoever you picked, I’m sure that’ll be… I mean, if I decide to--”

“Terminate? You never have to see them again. I told you, I’m going to take care of you, no matter what.”

“When--” Tony hadn’t even looked at a calendar, hadn’t thought about weeks and months and due dates, much less appointments and--

“You can medically terminate up to seven weeks,” Bucky said, gently. “Which means you have about three weeks left to decide. Or, if you need to think longer, there are other procedures, a little more invasive, up til like twenty weeks in, what they call a first trimester termination.”

After that, Tony knew there were other procedures, usually with skeevy doctors trying to make a buck from some desperate rich omega. “You’re okay with it?”

That seemed  _ unbelievable _ . Alphas viewed their kids, their progeny, their  _ heirs _ , as  proof of their virility. Or maybe that was all just locker room talk; Tony’d heard about Alphas who didn’t want the burden of kids, but they’d sure like an omega to play in heat with. Or maybe it was just the dim possibility that it wasn’t Bucky’s kid-- baby? Fetus? Thing. Whatever.

“If we’re talking about what I want, what I want if I didn’t have to consider anyone but me, then yeah,” Bucky said. “I want this baby. Our baby. But it don’t work that way, sugar. What you want, what you need. I need that even more. Want that even more. I want… good things for you, I want you to be happy, feel safe and secure. In other words, I’d rather make the you that exists right now, happy, than risk that happiness for a child that doesn’t exist yet. I promise, whatever decision you make, how I feel about you ain’t gonna change.”

“Okay,” Tony said. He still wasn’t certain, wasn’t sure. “Let’s… let’s uh, see what your doctor has to say?” He couldn’t help the way his hands came down to cradle his completely flat belly. There was nothing in there to protect, to see or feel. Aside from some queasiness and the lines on the tester, it could have been a figment of Tony’s imagination.

“Dr. Cho,” Bucky said. “Yeah, we can do that. There’s no rush.”

Well, there was sort of a rush. Time and tide waited for no man. Or baby. 

A baby. Tony’s hands were still pushing at his stomach, like he expected to get a high five or something.

“Did--” Bucky’s voice was soft, hesitant. “Did you mean what you said, earlier?”

“I said lots of things earlier,” Tony protested, but the way his ears were burning, he knew Bucky had to be thinking of one thing. “You’ll have to be more precise.”

“Pedant,” Bucky said, accusing him fondly. “About extending the contract. Is… is that something you want, or something--”

“If we’re talking about what I want--” Tony said, repeating Bucky’s words back to him, “what I want if I didn’t have to consider anyone but me, then yeah. Yes. Baby, or no baby. This…” It took every bit of his courage to raise his chin and look at his Alpha. “I don’t think you know what this is like for me. Being able to do what I want, when I want to. Having someone care if I eat enough, or I get sleep, or-- and it’s not just building the damn workshop, although that’s pretty excellent, too. It’s that you… you’re taking care of me.” Tony waved his hands around, gesturing as he tried to explain what all that meant. “Like, my parents take care of me, in the whole not starving in the streets thing--”

“Well, they can have a damn gold star for meeting the lowest possible standards for human decency,” Bucky muttered. “If all they do is dump food on you twice a day, they should get a goldfish.”

Tony bit his lip and didn’t want to admit that his parents really probably wouldn’t have noticed if he’d stopped eating. He knew he missed meals sometimes, and he’d never slept particularly well, but as long as he didn’t bother his parents, no one seemed to care.

“Tony-- you can stay here as long as you want,” Bucky said. “And, you know, you don’t have to stay as my omega. You can just… stay.”

“I didn’t think--” Tony started, stopped because the lump in his throat was too big to talk around. “I didn’t think there was an Alpha like you in the world.”

“Maybe a few,” Bucky said, and Tony found himself in Bucky’s arms again, practically sitting on his Alpha’s lap. “Ain’t many omegas as special as you are, neither.”

Tony squirmed a little under the praise, but for once in his life, he didn’t feel the need to argue with Bucky, didn’t want to talk him out of the belief that Tony had some  _ value _ .

“When’s the appointment?” Tony whispered.

“Two days,” Bucky said. 

Two days.

It seemed like forever away and it seemed like right around the corner. Tony tucked his face against Bucky’s neck and just nodded. It seemed… safe. Bucky seemed safe.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOps! I am so sorry. I've been working on the Tony Stark Bingo stuff all day today and completely forgot to post this! eeek!

Tony poked his phone absently. There wasn’t anything else to do, really.

The waiting room was almost empty. Bucky sat next to him on the somewhat less than actually comfortable sofa, but he was practically asleep, head leaned against the wall, mouth slightly open. If his mate actually started drooling, Tony was absolutely going to take a picture of it. He needed something to compensate for this feeling of completely outclassed that he got from being around Bucky all the time.

His mail icon blinked.

Tony considered the icon, and then the flashing game on his screen, grumbled, and shut down the game. It was probably spam mail, and he was going to regret that, but his curiosity was too great.

It wasn’t spam.

It also wasn’t useful, as the notify basically told him that he had mail through Synergy. Grumbling some more, Tony opened the other program. His college logo popped up on the main screen. _Are you a Parent or a Student?_

For a wild moment, Tony wondered if they knew, if someone knew that he was, might be, thinking about possibly-- but no, that had always been the log in, since parents were often paying for their child’s college classes.

He tapped in his credentials.

“What’s up?” Bucky still didn’t look awake, but Tony could see glints of his eyes from under heavy lashes.

“Uh, grades.”

That got Bucky’s attention. “So?”

“I haven’t opened them yet,” Tony admitted. It was stupid, he knew that. He’d gotten special permission (from both the school’s director and from his Alpha) to take the classes as online and complete his work from Bucky’s house. He knew he’d done pretty well on the exams, and the absentee policy had been appealed, so that he could take courses off campus.

So there was no reason to be worried, right?

Right?

“Mr. Stark,” the nurse said. “If you’ll come with me, please.”

Tony pocketed his phone, then glanced at his Alpha. “Are you coming?”

“If you want me to,” Bucky said. Tony pressed his lips together in a tight grimace and then nodded. He didn’t know these doctors, he didn’t know what was going to happen, and while he didn’t particularly _like_ feeling all meggie-helpless, he sort of felt that way anyway.

Might as well get the support.

“Besides, this way, you’ll actually look at your grades, once we get back there,” Bucky teased.

“Are we making it a thing?” Tony wondered.

He got up and followed the nurse, who took him through all the routine checking in shit. Height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature. Omega-kind, reduced to a set of numbers on a vitals chart.

“All right, gonna draw a little blood,” the nurse said, and Tony appreciated that the nurse -- a beta -- actually looked at Tony, and didn’t direct all her commentary to the Alpha. “And then you’ll want to urinate into this cup-- wash your hands before, twice. Use these wipes to clean up. Pee into the toilet for like 2 seconds, and then into the cup. Okay?”

“Complicated instructions for something I’ve been doing my whole life,” Tony muttered.

The nurse was not amused, even if Bucky did smirk. So, half a point.

“You sure you don’t need a hand,” Bucky said, “just to make sure everything comes out all right?”

“Oh, my god, stop,” Tony said, feeling his neck heat.

The nurse ignored Bucky -- or, at least, she snubbed him. “Don’t mind him,” she said. “Alphas are all the same when it comes to their mates being pregnant. It’s not real to them until a doctor says it’s so.”

“I’m not sure it’s real to me, yet,” Tony said.

“Well, we’ll know soon enough, now, make a fist. There we go, little prick here--”

“No it’s not.”

“Bucky will you _shut up_?” Being cranky with Bucky, at least, was taking his mind off the weird draining feeling he was getting as the nurse filled vial after vial with this blood. “Leave some for me, would ya?”

Tony might have scoffed at his Alpha’s assistance, brushed him off, but honestly, it seemed like the nurse had taken enough blood to feed a very small colony of vampires and Tony wobbled when he hopped down from the cot. Bucky had a hand on Tony’s elbow even before his feet hit the floor.

“After you get back, change into this gown, open down the back, use this blanket to cover your legs, and Doctor Cho will be with you shortly,” the nurse said. She stuck a label on Tony’s container for pee, and whisked away.

Bucky walked with him over to the bathroom, and waited outside while Tony tried to juggle the whole pee sample cup and hand washing and wipes and-- how the fuck did female omegas do this shit? Not like there was a shelf in here…

Which, when he thought about it, was probably for the best, because a shelf might end up with drips from other people’s pee and--

Ug. Just not thinking. Not thinking about it sounded good.

At least this time he knew he was supposed to sit down to pee in the cup, so he didn’t have to worry about that part.

Mission accomplished -- he carefully wiped off the outside of the sample jar. The plastic was disconcertingly warm as he carried it back to the office room with him. Yuck. He sat it down on the counter near the doctor’s sink, washed his hands again, and then moved the box of tissues in front of the jar because really, he just didn’t think he could carry on a conversation like a normal adult while sitting in a room with his urine in a jar on the counter like some sort of-- nevermind, not thinking about that, either.

Bucky politely turned his back while Tony changed into the ridiculous hospital gown, a faded shade of mint green with ducks on them, for fuck’s sake. He folded up his clothes and deposited them on the counter, about as far away from the pee as he could get, just in case there was a spill. That looked weird, though, so he started fussing with his stuff, moving it off the counter and onto the end of the cot. And then from the cot to the chair.

“Check your grades,” Bucky reminded him, after Tony rearranged the contents of the counter several times. Which was probably Bucky’s way of saying to stop fidgeting, or maybe Tony was projecting. Again.

“You think I should? What if it’s bad news? I’m already nervous as hell about this appointment--”

“Are you going to be more nervous, or less, if you’re still worrying about your grades?”

“Good point.”

Tony probably flashed Bucky a few times getting back up onto the cot, but that was okay. Mostly. Not that Bucky hadn’t seen everything Tony had, but still, doing it in a completely unsexy hospital gown wasn’t doing Tony’s ego any good.

Maybe grades would help.

Of course, maybe they wouldn’t. It would be nice, Tony decided, if he could just not be nervous about something. Anything.

He opened the file.

“So?”

“I, uh… yeah,” Tony said, a little dazed. “I mean, not that I expected anything else, really. Not really.”

“Is that good, or bad?”

“I passed,” Tony said, and then because he couldn’t say it outloud without sounding like an egotistical asshole (Why was it that Alpha’s pride was okay -- more than fine, really -- and an omega’s justifiable satisfaction with their accomplishments was vanity? Stupid double standards.) he handed the phone over to his mate.

“Straight A’s,” Bucky said, and the tony of satisfaction in his voice was warming. “Good job, babydoll.” Bucky continued to read, making little sounds as he glanced over Tony’s teachers’ remarks. “This is great! I’m very impressed.”

That was more than Tony had ever gotten from his parents.

The nurse popped her head in for a few seconds, let them know it was going to be a bit longer, and grabbed Tony’s sample, disappearing again.

“I hope she washes her hands,” Tony said, flatly.

“I’m serious,” Bucky said. “This is a hell of an accomplishment. We should do something to celebrate, after--”

“After we find out whether or not I’m actually pregnant?”

There was a soft knock at the door and then the doctor came in, a clipboard in one hand.  she said. “Good morning, Mr. Stark. I’m Doctor Cho, but you can call me Helen if you want.” She didn’t offer a hand to shake, and Tony thought that was for the best, since his own hands were already shaking.

“And you’re _decidedly_ pregnant,” she said, cutting to the chase.

It shouldn’t be a shock, hearing it. Tony had been pretty sure. But pretty sure wasn’t quite the same as having someone in an expert capacity affirming his thoughts.

It was official.

Knocked up.

Bun in the oven.

In a family way.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Tony said in response to the news, and he had to admire Cho’s competence as well as her speed. She whipped around, grabbed a plastic, kidney bean shaped dish from the cabinet over the sink and got it under Tony’s chin in time for him to puke.

He wouldn’t have thought that the small container could hold it all, but maybe puke just looked more impressive in a toilet.

Not that it ever looked impressive, just--

“Thanks,” he croaked.

“Not at all, Mr. Stark,” she said. It didn’t take her long to clean up, which she did without commentary or even a grimace. “Doctors deal with this sort of thing all the time, I’m used to it.” She handed him a paper cup of water and Tony dutifully rinsed and spat into the dish again.

Bucky patted Tony on the back, rubbing soft circles and making soothing noises, while Tony wished he could evaporate. Vomiting in front of Bucky was bad enough, doing it in front of the doctor was deeply humiliating, even if Cho was completely chill about it.

“I understand there were some irregularities in your conceiving,” Cho said, gently.

“Yeah,” Tony admitted. “There was another Alpha--” And that burned, too. It wasn’t like he’d wanted Rumlow there, or--

“I’ve been given the rough details, Mr. Stark,” Cho said. “I’m very sorry for how this situation must make a difficult time even more difficult.”

Tony just nodded.

“So, I’m going to tell you a few things, and then explain some of your options-- and then I have a proposal for you,” she said.

“What kind of proposal?” Tony wondered. “Can we just skip to that part?”

“All right,” Cho said. “So, obviously, this other Alpha bit you, which makes things nerve-wracking all the way around. Let me tell you now, I can test your blood as soon as you pass twelve weeks -- three months, or your first trimester, however you want to look at it, for paternity. It used to be the only way to test was after the babes were delivered, or there was an amniocentesis protocol for testing, but at an increased risk for miscarriage. Now, we can test as early as three months. If that will relieve your mind.”

Tony did that math in his head; he couldn’t do the easy, early abort after finding out if Rumlow was, indeed, the father. _Fuck._ He didn’t want _Rumlow’s_ baby. He didn’t want to give that son of a bitch any posthumous Alpha points.

“That said, it’s not entirely like it matters,” Cho said. “Which leads me to my proposition.”

Tony managed to raise his eyes. “Go on.”

“I work with couples primarily who have fertility issues; sometimes a donor egg or sperm is needed; sometimes as much as a donor womb. We’ve had some progress on an experimental treatment that will override your current scent-mark.”

“What?” Tony’s hand tightened on Bucky’s fingers.

“It’s a series of injections that will wipe out your scent marker; you won’t register as claimed at all,” Cho explained. “And then, we have heat-induction pills. We usually use these for older omegas who don’t go into rut as easily, but they still want a family, especially later in life. Since you’re already pregnant, it’ll-- well, I’m sure you’re aware that hormone triggers in pregnancy tend to create what people sometimes call the second heat. A period of increased… desire for one’s mate, during the second trimester. This process is somewhat amplified, which will let your current Alpha re-establish their scent-markers.”

“Bucky would bite me again,” Tony translated.

“If he’s who you wish as your Alpha, then, yes,” Cho said. “The rest of the pregnancy would proceed normally, and your familial unit would be perfectly bonded.”

“This is… safe? For Tony?” Bucky asked.

“There are some risks,” Cho said, “Side effects. Mostly light, and almost all tolerable. Some pain at the injection site. Headaches. Sometimes increased nausea. Increased sex drive. In very rare cases, late term spontaneous abortion. A miscarriage. It is a risk, but very slight.”

“How slight?”

“Less than a percent increased chance. Which is to say, your risk goes from point four percent to approximately two percent. Late term miscarriages are rare, usually genetic, or health-related.”

Tony chewed on his lip, eyeing Bucky sidelong, trying to gauge his Alpha’s emotional state. Not a skill Tony had in the best of times.

“You have time to think it over, and I have literature for you to read, at your leisure,” Cho said. “But Mr. Barnes specifically wanted me to talk over these options with you. He… and his unit...  well, I owe them all very much, as does everyone-- well, that’s a long story. Needless to say, when Mr. Barnes reached out to me, I was happy to be of some assistance.”

“I’ll tell you the story later,” Bucky promised.

“So, I’d like to do some initial wellness checks,” Cho said.

“Yeah, okay, of course,” Tony said. Dazed.

Bucky had done this for him, brought in this expert. Cashed in a favor, so Tony could have even more options, that his pregnancy could be easier on everyone if he was scented correctly.

His wrist ached, he was gripping Bucky’s metal hand so hard.

“Lay back on the cot, Mr. Stark,” Cho instructed. “I’ll tell you everything as I’m about to do it. No surprises. I’m going to feel your stomach… my hands are a little cold, sorry about that--”

Cold wasn’t even close to accurate, what had she been doing, stuffing her fingers in the ice box?

Tony tuned it out while she poked and prodded and asked questions. He stared at the ceiling tiles and wondered. Marvelled.

_I’m going to be a parent._

***

Tony was nearly silent the entire ride home. Sometimes he would answer Bucky’s direct question, but usually he got a “what did you say” and then, when Bucky repeated his question, he got more of the same. Bucky gave up, turned the radio up a little louder than made conversation comfortable but not so much as to interfere with his driving.

He sang along, low, under his breath, and tried not to bug his omega with pointless questions when Tony was so obviously thinking. Or worrying. Or _something_.

Bucky bit his lip. Tony will talk when he’s ready to talk. The problem with Tony wasn’t that he didn’t talk, it was getting him to shut up sometimes that was harder.

Which was, in itself, a little worrisome.

Finally, Bucky pulled into his drive. Tony just sat there. Admittedly, Bucky hadn’t had a lot of experience with driving his omega around, but usually Tony was leaping out of the vehicle practically before it came to a stop, as if trying to avoid the rigmarole of an Alpha helping him out of the car as if all of omegakind were made from wet tissue paper.

Bucky shut his door, looked around the woods. Tony still hadn’t moved.

Fine. Bucky went around to to passenger side of the car and opened the door. “We’re here,” he said, which shouldn’t have felt like an announcement, because of course they were here. “We’re home.”

Tony looked up, finally, his eyes a little fuzzy. “Oh, that didn’t take long,” he said. He didn’t take Bucky’s hand for assistance getting out of the car, but he didn’t actively scoff, either. As far as Bucky could tell, Tony was so lost in his own thoughts, he just didn’t _notice_.

“Are you hungry?”

Tony smiled, and his eyes came into focus for the first time in a while. “Yeah, I think-- yes, thank you.” He let Bucky take his arm and lead him into the house.

Grilled cheese was quick and easy, and Bucky heated up two bowls of soup -- tomato for himself, and butternut squash with toasted pumpkin seeds on top for Tony -- and threw a bit of mixed salad into bowls. A substantial lunch, but Tony had given about half a pint of blood for medical stuff, and he was eating for more than one, and Bucky was born hungry and still struggling to catch up.

Tony ate his salad, soup, and was picking at the crusts of his sandwich before he finally looked away from his plate. “Thanks,” he said. “I… do you want to talk about-- stuff?” His hand went down on his belly again. Bucky wasn’t sure he knew he was doing that, like he was protecting the baby (babies?) or talking to them, or just reassuring himself that this was real.

Bucky reached out and took Tony’s spare hand, gently stopping him from turning his crust into breadcrumbs. “If you want to talk about it, then yeah, I’m good to listen,” Bucky said. “Don’t let me rush you through anything.”

“The timing--” Tony said. “That’s the important thing. If this is Brock’s--”

“Tony, it’s not,” Bucky said. “He doesn’t matter anymore. He can’t hurt you, ever again.”

Tony licked his lips. “The injections, a second heat… what if it turns out to be Brock’s kid?”

Bucky scratched at his chin with metal fingers. “Do you think I lo-- care about you because of who your parents are?”

Tony shot him a bright look, eyebrow going up. Bucky bit at his lip, he knew what he almost said, but if Tony wasn’t going to make an issue out of it, Bucky wasn’t going to repeat it. “I think some people do, but most people who like _me_ , like me _in spite_ of my parents. I’m not very much like either of them. I see what you’re doing there, where you’re going with this, but--”

“We’re talking about a baby, who may or may not, grow up to look like someone you hate. I know,” Bucky said. “But I promise you, that don’t matter to me. That baby will be part of you, and that’s all that is important to me.”

“You really mean that?”

“As much as I can,” Bucky said. “Without any evidence to back that up, aside from thinkin’ your dad is a complete dick and you… are pretty much wonderful. Even if you do look like him.”

“Ug, don’t remind me,” Tony said. “I used to _pray_ that I was adopted, but no dice. That someone would come along and offer me a new family.”

Bucky squeezed Tony’s hand. “Baby, that’s what I’m offering you. Maybe it’s a bit late--”

“Do you want, to do the thing, the scent treatment?” Tony wondered.

“I think it will make things easier on you,” Bucky said. “And so yeah--”

“And extra sex--”

“Always a plus, not going to argue with that.”

Tony was eyeing him suspiciously.

“What?”

“How do you always seem to know what to say? I feel like someone’s going to jump out with a camera and tell me I’ve been had.”

“You have trust issues, I get that,” Bucky said. He knew that he was going to have to reassure Tony a lot, and that was, honestly, the biggest reason he wanted to do Cho’s treatments. So that Tony could feel more confident. He only hoped it would work, and that Tony wouldn’t think Bucky only liked him _because_ of the treatments. “So, I’m gonna go ahead and lay it all out here for ya. No lies, no exaggerations, no hiding things. Okay?”

Tony squinted, as if trying to be a lie detector. “Okay?”

“I always thought -- when I daydreamed about that sort of stuff -- that any omega would do,” Bucky said. “I didn’t have anyone particular in mind. Just a nameless, faceless, scentless omega, who I could love an’ take care of an’ who would love me back. And I think I didn’t have anything specific in mind, because there was no way I’d ever be so wild t’ imagine someone like you in that place.”

Bucky reached out, touched Tony’s cheek. “You are everything I ever wanted, an’ everything I didn’t even know how to ask for. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re stubborn, an’ proud, an’ a little erratic. A lot gorgeous. Kissable. Cuddly. You… make me feel things, an’ I’d pretty much given up on that shit. You make me want to protect you, an’ watch you fly all at the same time. An’ it’s not just that-- I like you. I’m more’n halfway in love with you, I think, an’ it wouldn’t take much to push me over that line. What’s even better than that? I like how you look at me. I like… the way we talk. You make me want to do better. Be worthy of you. I like me better, when we’re together, an’ you got no idea how long I have hated everything about myself. You don’t fix me, you make me want to fix myself.”

Tony’s eyes were huge, luminous. On the verge of tears and then he hitched in a breath and they spilled silently down his cheeks. “Most people barely tolerate me,” he whispered.

“Most people ain’t me,” Bucky said. “An’ my friends like you-- Peggy thinks you’re a regular little spitfire, an’ she’s proud as hell of you. Maybe everything sucked for so long because you needed to be _where you belong_. Where you fit in.

“So, if you want those injections, to help you feel more comfortable, we’ll get them,” Bucky finished. “But I ain’t gonna change my mind about _you_.”

Bucky was barely adequately braced for a sudden armful of weeping omega.

“I love you, too,” Tony told him, pressing a tear-soaked face against Bucky’s neck, kissing him frantically. “I want to stay, I want to be yours, I want… I want this, all of this, please can I--”

“Yeah, yeah, baby, you can have it all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS - I haven't started writing the next chapter yet. Please weigh in if you want one more smut scene, or the final wrap up chapter. Either way, this story is almost done, and I'm so glad you've all joined me for it!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the smut adverse, it pretty much gets dirty after Rhodey's phone call, so...
> 
> And this just about wraps it up. I have one more chapter, and then...   
> thanks for joining me on this little experiment. I've never done much with ABO before, but I read a few really great ones, and I just got inspired.

“This is _ridiculous_ ,” Tony complained. They were back in Doctor Cho’s office and Tony was pacing the floor, hands linked over an expanding belly.

“It’s a controlled substance,” Bucky tried, reasonably. He always tried to be reasonable, and Tony was Not Having It. Not today. He was tired -- his rounded stomach was getting in the way, and he liked to sleep on his belly, which meant he just didn’t feel as rested, sleeping on his side. He was hungry -- which always, he seemed to be hungry. Except when he was going to throw up.

And he was just irritable, which everyone told him was a side effect of being pregnant, and that just pissed him off. Like he couldn’t have his own emotions, they had to be the result of something else entirely? No wonder people thought omegas were idiots, all this bullshit about hormones and pregnancy cravings. He wasn’t a person, he was an incubator with legs.

A hungry, cranky, tired incubator with legs.

“What’s controlled about a hormone drug?” Tony wondered.

“It’s a heat inducer,” Bucky said, again, patiently, because he seemed to have accidentally stolen all of Tony’s patience. “You have any idea what kinda assholes might want to do with something like that?”

“Yeah, it’s like Viagra for omegas, and you don’t see anyone restricting that, whether they have a medical need for it or not. It’s just more Alpha-hole bullshit about controlling omegas bodies, whether they want it or not.”

“I don’t make the laws,” Bucky said, “but I can see not wanting someone to use it like a date-rape drug.”

“You have to inject the person _multiple times_ \--” Tony protested, although Bucky was right about that much, at least. “And maybe you should do something about the laws. Run for office or something.”

Bucky made a strangled noise. “I think that would be a _terrible_ idea.”

“Well, probably, but honestly, after Howard kicks off, we’d certainly have the money to buy our way into office,” Tony said. He continued to pace around, absently considering what that endeavor would cost, and if getting Bucky into a public office, giving him access to at least one Senator who cared about omega rights, would have a direct positive cost-to-benefit ratio.

Bucky watched him pace, mildly amused.

“Come on back, Mr. Stark,” the nurse said, interrupting his thoughts. Tony had decided to go ahead and get the shots to do the rebonding; his pregnancy was freaking miserable and whoever decided that this was the best way to carry babies was just-- they really needed to sit down and consider their project plan, because Tony would much rather have laid an egg.

“You don’t have the patience to sit on a damn egg,” Bucky muttered behind him.

“Did I say that outloud? Besides, you could sit on the damn egg,” Tony retorted. “Or I could hire someone to sit on the egg.”

“This sounds like the beginning of _Horton Hatches an Egg_ ,” Bucky said.

The doctor’s room was chilly again. “We can try to get an ultrasound, if you want, Mr. Stark. If you do, go ahead and put a gown on, otherwise the nurse will be in in a few minutes to weigh you and give you your injection.”

Tony hesitated, and then reached for the gown, stepping out of his shoes.

“They should be able to see now, shouldn’t they? Sixteen weeks?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Bucky said. “I think ultrasound pictures look like blobs, really. Little adiposes, or something.”

“It’ll be out Doctor Who villains, though, so that makes it better, right?”

“If you give birth to a Dalek, I’m not helping you bottle feed it, just saying,” Bucky said.

Tony got into the gown and arranged on the table just as Dr. Cho came in. “I see we want to take a look,” Cho said. She pulled the machine over, got a tube of gel, and dimmed the lights. “Shot first, lemme get a look--”

Tony rolled over on his side and she jammed the needle into the fat part of his hip, rubbing at the site for a moment, which hurt like hell, but it hurt worse if she didn’t rub.

Dart board, Tony thought, and took over the rubbing as Cho set up the sonogram.

“Here, spread the sheet across your legs and we’ll take a peek, dad,” she said.

“ _Tony_ ,” Tony muttered. That was something he really wasn’t keen on; as soon as the pregnancy was confirmed, literally everyone started calling him _dad_. Nurses, doctors, pharmacists, the people at the _Bundle of Joy_ shop. Seriously. Tony had a _name_ , and he would really prefer that people use it. Calling him dad made him feel, once again, like a walking incubator.

Tony got his dignity all covered up, not that he really had any, and Cho pulled up the gown to show off Tony’s rounded belly. He sort of felt like he had a porch stuck out on his lawn; rounded and a little squishy.

“This is cold,” she warned.

“Oh, that’s a shock, I think I’ll have a heart attack and --yikes!” The blue gel was cold. Like, sub-arctic. Really, would it fucking hurt anyone to heat anything up before they poked him?

She rubbed the goop along Tony’s belly and then held a paddle to it, looking at the monitor.

“Hmmm,” she said, moving the paddle again. A faint hiss, and then wub-wub-wub--WUB-wub-Wub.

“What’s that?” Tony stared at the monitor, trying to figure out why his stomach was suddenly sounding like someone was plucking a rubber band inside it.

“Heartbeats,” Cho murmured, not looking away as she moved the paddle again. “Where are they hiding, there’s not that much space in here, really-- oh, there we--”

Tony inhaled and held it, held it until his lungs were burning, and then…

“There we go,” Cho crooned. “One… and two.”

She poked around a little longer, trying to get a better angle, and then-- “Yeah, looks like twins,” she said decisively.

“Can you tell--” Bucky asked, tentative. “Girl? Boys? One of each? I mean, if Tony wants-- do you want to know, honey?”

Tony was already studying the blobs, not really knowing what he was seeing. Or not seeing. “I can’t even tell which end is up,” he complained. “But yeah, we can start bickering about names right away, if you want.”

Cho poked around a few more times, and Tony could swear he saw one of the blobs reach out a tiny little hand, like they were trying to figure out what was pushing on the outside of their little comfy spot.

And all the sudden, Tony was hit with a wave of emotion; pride and love and hope and fear and--

“You’re crying,” Bucky said, handing him a tissue.

“No, I’m not.”

“Um… pretty sure this one is a girl, but-- she’s in the-- come on, move just--”

“A girl?” Tony squeezed Bucky’s hand.

“Aaaaand… looks like another girl,” Cho said. She pushed a button and a whirr of printer activity started. “See, here’s the head, and legs, and-- well, you can’t see that there’s not a penis, so it’s still possible that they’re boys, they’re just not presenting yet. We’ll check again in a few weeks. By twenty-two weeks, we’re usually positive. But it looks like two girls.”

Tony absently wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“That’s what I gave you the tissue for,” Bucky said.

“Pffft, I’m not crying, stop it,” Tony said, shoving the tissue away.

“It’s okay if you’re crying,” Bucky told him. “I am, too.”

Tony actually looked and realized that it was true. “Huh.”

“Well, I never expected to be a parent, you know,” Bucky said. “This is a great moment, for me.”

A little family unit, Bucky and Tony and their two daughters. Tony sniffled. “Oh, give me the damn kleenex.”

“You sure?” Bucky wondered. “Seein’ that you’re not crying or anything.”

“He’s so mean to me,” Tony said to Cho. “I mean, can you believe how mean he is?”

“He’s terrible,” Cho agreed. “The worst.”

Tony pulled on Bucky’s arm until they were half wrapped around each other. “I’m totally lying,” he said. “You’re the best, like best Alpha ever.”

“And I’m going to buy you ice cream after we get out of here,” Bucky said.

“And you’re going to buy me ice cream.”

***

“The selection of maternity clothes suck,” Tony said. He didn’t quite throw the shirt with it’s so-called cute ruffled top that was supposed to detract from the fact that Tony’s belly had its own damn zip code. “Also, seventy dollars for this piece of shit is highway robbery.”

“Never thought I’d see the day that you cared about costs,” Rhodey said, his voice not quite tinny from the speaker phone. Moral support, Tony’s ass. He glared at the three-way mirror, and then snatched his own shirt up again.

Ugly, expensive piece of crap or not, walking around without a shirt on at all was seriously weird.

He looked like someone tucked a basketball into his belly. And stretch marks! Dear Tesla, why had no one to told him that stretch marks looked like that? All the coconut oil lotion in the world wasn’t helping, he had fucking purple lightning bolts around his stomach, pointing at his navel, which had popped out like a damn turkey timer.

Whose idea was this?

“You’re supposed to be on my side here,” Tony complained.

“I’m not on anyone’s side, Tones,” Rhodey said. “Aside from maybe Uncle Sam, but that’s because he pays me. I just go where I’m told.”

“Yeah, platypus, I don’t believe that for a second,” Tony said. He picked up another shirt-- Peggy had been making comments about his wardrobe for weeks and weeks. Well, it was probably only two comments, but the last time she’d made one, Bucky’s face had done _a thing_.

Tony wasn’t quite sure what sort of thing it was, but he didn’t want to see it again. The one that vaguely suggested that Tony wasn’t very sexy in his oversized tees that he’d gotten -- the normal sort of things that he wore, but just in 3XLs, so they were more like ugly dresses, and he’d worn them with sweatpants that tied up under his stomach.

Come of think of it, it was not a very attractive look.

“I’m pregnant,” Tony told the mirror. And Rhodey. “I look like an unsexy whale, and I don’t care how much lace is on this top, nothing is going to change that!”

“Pretty sure whales are never not sexy,” Rhodey said. “Whales are the bomb, and you would be _lucky_ to look like a whale.”

“You are a horrible person and I don’t love you,” Tony said.

“Yeah, heard that before,” Rhodey said. “Seriously, though, it’s good to hear your voice. You-- okay, total cheese time here, but _you sound happy_.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m both on base and in Afghanistan,” Rhodey said.

“I do not sound happy, I look like I’m going to give birth to a hippopotamus. A pregnant hippo.”

“Usually, yes, if you’re a hippo, you’re going to give birth to a hippo,” Rhodey said. “When was the last time you even cared what you looked like? I know… you like this guy.”

“Well, duh, I should hope so,” Tony retorted. “I’m gonna have a baby with him, I’d hope that I’d like him.”

“Nah, nah, you don’t get out of it so easily. Go on,” Rhodey teased. “You gave me more than enough shit over Caro, it’s my turn.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said. He picked up another maternity shirt and held it in front of his chest. Ug. What was with all the bows and lace frippery. He was an omega, not a window that needed curtains. “I like him. A lot.”

“And he likes you, too?”

“I think so,” Tony said. Rhodey couldn’t see him flushing, which was good, because Tony was actually feeling really comfortable with the idea of Bucky liking him, maybe even loving him. Which was probably another one of those hormone things. He’d been feeling better about it since Cho started the shots, and--

“That’s good,” Rhodey said. “I’d hate to have to use my leave to come kick his ass for you.”

“Okay, one, he’s an Alpha, and a special forces veteran. I don’t know that you could kick his ass,” Tony said.

“Proud omega,” Rhodey teased.

“Okay, what even the fuck is this thing?” Tony held up a denim _romper_. With suspender belts. That hooked into little button tabs? Tony wasn’t sure he could get in and out of it without an engineering degree. Which he didn’t quite have yet.

Like, he was pregnant, he had to fucking pee all the goddamn time, and someone wanted him to wear booty shorts that he’d have to take off from the shoulder down every three minutes? No, no _fucking_ way. “I’m not wearing that.”

“Did you even look at the things before you ordered them?”

“No.” Why would he do that? Tony’d grown up around Jan van Dyne, he knew better than anyone that most clothes were designed to look good on a hanger. Hmmm. That was an idea. Not becoming a hanger, which would be nice, because everything would look good on him, but maybe Janet could come down and help him with this whole looking like an over inflated basketball.

She could make him something black, and heavy metal-y, and maybe with a gun turret to dissuade perfect strangers from trying to touch his belly, because really, what the fuck was up with that? Tony cocked his head; was that a motorcycle he heard.

“Are you even list--”

Tony about jumped out of his skin. He’d actually forgotten that he was on the phone. “What, no, sorry, prickly pear. I think Bucky’s home.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I get that I’m second fiddle now,” Rhodey said. “Just, I got approved for leave, so don’t you dare have those babies without me.”

“You’re the best,” Tony said, making kissy noises at the phone. “You better have gotten me some ice cream--” Yelling to make sure Bucky could hear him, even from the front room, Tony grabbed the nearest shirt thing that he’d tried on and pulled it over his enormous belly. He didn’t even care if it was lacy and cute and all omega-like, it was a shirt, and he didn’t want Bucky seeing him with his stretch marks on full display.

Tony took a few steps toward the kitchen and came to a dead stop.

Oh, oh, oh!

The shots were working.

Bucky had walked into the house, headed straight for the kitchen, and left behind a trail of pheromones. Tony was pretty sure he could follow Bucky to freaking Malibu. On foot. If he just kept smelling like that.

“Of course I got you ice cream,” Bucky said, just like everything was normal. They’d found out that Tony ate better if most of his food was bland stuff that he didn’t need to chew; soup and pudding and scrambled eggs. And ice cream. Lots of ice cream. He was going to need to keep those ugly maternity shirts after he gave birth, just because he was going to gain forty pounds of ice cream.

The shirts probably still wouldn’t look cute.

“You want Pecan Sticky Buns or--” Bucky walked halfway into the living room. He stopped. His nostrils flared. There was a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in each hand, and a spoon tucked against one. “Oh, god.”

“It’s the top, right,” Tony said in a sudden panic, crossing his arms-- well, he tried to cross them over his chest, but they really ended up sort of over and under that belly, emphasizing just how enormous he was, and-- “Don’t look, it’s ugly, I--”

“Shut up,” Bucky told him, harsh, and Tony blinked, startled. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and if you keep on--” Bucky was suddenly all up in Tony’s space, crowding him, filling the air with that pungent, glorious Alpha scent.

“It’s too much,” Tony said, nonsensical, and even as he was protesting, his body seemed to have something else entirely on its mind. “It’s too much, and I can’t--” There was no more distance between them.

And Bucky’s lips touched his.

There was no doubt, the way Bucky moaned and pressed against him, the ice cream pints hitting the floor disregarded, that Bucky had nothing else on his mind at all. It was all about Tony. the very center of Bucky’s universe.

Transforming him from awkward, pregnant, waddling omega into something unbearably sexy. He didn’t want the feeling to go away, he wanted to stay in this moment forever. Hell, Tony just _wanted_. It was unreasoning and undeniable. “Take me to bed.”

Bucky kissed him again, tongue sliding between Tony’s lips and stealing his breath. Bucky’s hands were all over him, shedding him out of that ridiculous shirt, cupping his ass, thumbing at his nipples, which ached. They weren’t going to make it to bed.

Which was, in retrospect, probably good, because Tony had left it covered with the various shirts and rompers and--

Tony arched his neck, coy, letting his head lol back to expose his throat, and Bucky seemed helpless to resist that temptation. Soft, incoherent sounds issued from Tony’s mouth, and Bucky nuzzled light at the scent gland.

Tony’s hands went up to Bucky’s hair, feeling the silky strands. Bucky let out another one of those senseless, needy sounds. Bucky was doing remarkable things to Tony’s neck, tasting and testing, his teeth pressing against the skin, tender and sweet. Long, dreamy moments as he tongued the spot where Tony’s scent gland was swollen. “Bucky--” Tony said, then, “Alpha--”

Bucky bit down.

And it was no longer about what Tony wanted, but about what he _needed_.

Tony sucked in a breath and it turned to fire in his lungs. “Alpha.”

“I got you,” Bucky told him, taking his mouth off that tender spot, and the scent of them both mixed in the air, mixed until--

Tony didn’t know how much pain he’d been in until it was utterly, utterly taken away.

Emboldened by the fire inside, Tony pressed his hands to Bucky’s chest, rubbing and stroking him, peeling him out of that tee-shirt. Clothes, so much hassle.

“You’re ice cream’s gonna melt,” Bucky told him.

Tony had to pull back and stare, because how the hell could Bucky be thinking about ice cream when Tony wanted him so damn bad?

Bucky’s eyes were pupil blown and liquid, his mouth red from making love to Tony’s neck, and he winked-- the utter, utter bastard. Damn, Tony loved this man. “So go put it in the freezer, asshole,” Tony told him, shoving him away.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get started without me.”

Well, that was an idea. While Bucky scooped up the two pints, Tony worked at getting his damn sweatpants off, nearly breaking the string tie. He was wearing ugly grannie pants underneath, since the waist band came up high enough to not just roll up and lodge under his stomach. “You two--” he told his belly “-- are more trouble than you’re worth.”

“I love you,” Bucky said, suddenly, staring at Tony.

“If you love me, then get over here and love me, rather than making me stand here looking like the world’s worst lingerie model,” Tony told him.

Bucky was there in an instant, like a video game glitch. His body shuddered as he took Tony into his arms. His breath ghosted over Tony’s lips before Tony was kissed and kissed and _kissed_. “Mine,” Bucky demanded, begged, pleaded. “Mine, say it.”

“Yours, Alpha.” Tony gave it to him, easily, without hesitation, because it was true, it was, and damn biology to hell, but Tony couldn’t even care enough to resent it. He belonged to this man, and he always would. Everything about him was Bucky’s, and only Bucky’s. And Bucky would treat that like the gift it was, priceless, immeasurable. “I love you.”

Bucky’s eyes were huge, liquid with emotion. Tenderly, he finished stripping himself, took Tony’s drawers and tossed them on the floor. He was moving slow, Tony realized, because he couldn’t do anything else. As much a slave to the heat between them as Tony. He had given his entire self to his Alpha, but he’d gotten back something even more valuable.

He had Bucky. His Alpha.

His body was hot and hard against Tony’s, his hands everywhere and his mouth everywhere else. Bucky was touching him, along his thighs and belly. Not there, not where Tony needed it, but close, so close that Tony was willing to wait.

Bucky slid to his knees, and-- “This is not gonna work,” he said, bumping his nose gently against Tony’s belly. “You’re gonna have to lay on your side.”

“Ug, I feel like a water buffalo,” Tony complained. But side, side was good, he could do that. Kneeling, with the pregnant stomach swaying as he moved, no, no that wasn’t going to work, he felt his gorge rise just imagining it, but he could lay on his side and--

Well, how was that going to work, there wasn’t that much sofa, really--

Tony nearly shrieked when Bucky pushed his thighs open wide, one knee up. “Here, just--” two pillows between his knees and then Bucky was stroking Tony’s aching cock from behind, hand working between Tony’s legs.

“Oh,” Tony said, breathless. “You’ve been thinking about this, I see? Logistically minded, I like that in an Alpha. Inventive--oh! Good lord!”

Bucky had lube, and Tony was about to demand where exactly the sneaky son of a bitch he was mated to had gotten it from, but then Bucky did that, and Tony decided he didn’t care, it could be fucking crisco, stick a fork in him, he was-- oh, fuck, just like--

Bucky gripped Tony’s shoulder, held him practically immobile, whines muffled into the sofa’s cushions, as he opened Tony up with ruthless efficiency.

It should have hurt, Tony thought, should have-- well, no it was the little heat, Cho had said, and “Bucky! Alpha! Please!”

“I got you, Tony, my omega, my sweet, right here.” And right there in-fucking-deed. Bucky fucked him with his fingers, sweet and slick and sinful.

It made him squirm and ache and stretch, arch into it, and then roll his hips away until he was practically dry-fucking the sofa. He couldn’t have described how he was feeling if he had all the poets and playwrights in the universe at his immediate disposal. All he knew was that he would go insane if Bucky didn’t stop, and he’d die if Bucky did.

Somewhere, in that tiny plateau of perfect sensation, Bucky held him there, pinned and trapped and worshipped and pleasured.

They probably formed the world’s most awkward X, Bucky on his knees, lined up with Tony laying on the sofa, but it didn’t matter. When Bucky pushed into him, Tony would have done anything to hold that moment.

Bucky cried out, sweet, as Tony clenched around him, spasming helplessly.

Bucky was his. Tony’s. Forever. Even as Bucky thrust and stroked him, and took him to Heaven, he kept Tony grounded and close.

They moved together and it wasn’t beautiful or graceful, Tony’s rounded, gravid belly swaying softly, and it wasn’t musical or melodic, the way their voices raised in a tangle.

But it was the most perfect moment. Tony squeezed and clenched, his hands braced against the back of the sofa to keep himself pushed back against Bucky’s body.

It was glorious. Bucky accepted Tony for everything that he was. Not only accepted, but wanted, craved, needed.

He’d never expected to find such… belonging and devotion.

And if he was crying while they fucked, that was no one’s businesses. If he was so happy he could barely breathe, that was between him and his Alpha and the fucking wall.

As far as he could tell, based on the pitch of Bucky’s cries, and the way his body jerked and shivered, Bucky found his pleasure first, but then, still full and fat and stretching Tony out, Bucky stroked him, reaching around and under that full belly to touch and squeeze and stroke.

It was perfect, sublime. Tony came in a crescendo of emotion, each one rolling him over like a wave until he was shaking apart in Bucky’s arms.

“There, there you are, my omega, my perfect omega,” Bucky crooned. Tony panted and nodded an agreement, because he couldn’t do anything else. “Budge up a bit--”

Tony scooted over as far as he could go; the twins really took up more room than two babies that probably weren’t much bigger than potatoes should. Bucky slipped into the gap between Tony and the floor, one leg thrown over Tony’s hips. He ghosted a kiss between Tony’s shoulder blades. Pulled one of the quilts off the back of the sofa and tugged it over them before the sweat had even finished cooling, before Tony got chilled.

“Alpha.”

“Yes, my love?”

“Just-- Alpha. My Alpha.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh god,” Tony said suddenly.

“What?”

“I don’t know if I hung up the phone,” he said, sheepishly. “I was talking to Rhodey on speaker.”

Bucky nipped his neck. “Omega?”

“Yes, Alpha?”

“I’m quite sure your friend hung up, as soon as he knew what you were doing.”

“You haven’t met Rhodey,” Tony put forth. He wouldn’t put it past Rhodey to seriously prank him later with a recording. Or something.

Bucky just laughed, licking at that tender spot on Tony’s neck, and then he really couldn’t worry about it anymore. Rhodey either would, or he wouldn’t.

 _I’m just glad you’re happy, Tones._  


	12. Chapter 12

“Ug, I feel like a whale, and not like a cute orca or anything, but one of those beluga whales, all. You know, blobby and shit,” Tony complained, stuffing another apple slice coated liberally with peanut butter into his mouth. He was at least chewing and swallowing before he talked. Although Bucky suspected that was more because he was too hungry to chew and talk at the same time.

“You are eating for three,” Bucky reminded him.

Not that anyone could forget, with that stomach that wandered into the room a whole time zone ahead of Tony. Or so Tony claimed.

Bucky didn’t really think he looked all that bad. Cute, really. Waddling, with his hands resting on top of the curve.

“I am on my ninth muffin in this pack, and God Himself cannot tell me not to finish this pack,” Tony said. “I’m not eating for three, I’m eating for a whole damn baseball team.”

Bucky leaned over Tony’s shoulder and snitched one of the muffins. They were blueberry, with little crunchy sugar on top, and not his favorite, but with a challenge like that, he kinda had to eat one.

“You are not God,” Tony shrieked, and Bucky was all but convinced his omega was going to climb him like a tree to recover the muffin, when suddenly Tony sat back down.

Hard.

“Uh--”

“Tony?”

“What day is it?”

“Thursday, why?”

Tony was pale and getting paler. He reached out a trembling hand and groped for his bottle of soda. He wasn’t supposed to have caffeine, and mostly he didn’t, but Cho had said once a week, he could have one, if he really needed it, and things would be fine. So apparently today was a Coke day.

“I don’t feel right,” Tony said, suddenly. He pushed the bottle away and swayed gently.

“Okay?”

Bucky reached out and brushed the back of his metal hand against Tony’s forehead. He wasn’t sure why he did that, since it wasn’t like he could tell if Tony was running a fever or not. But Tony grabbed his wrist and cupped Bucky’s hand around his face, holding on like it was a lifeline.

“That feels good,” Tony said. He was a little clammy, and then he winced. Put one hand down to his belly. “Uhhh. What day is it?”

“Thursday. The seventh.”

“When’s my due date?” Tony asked, voice barely a whisper. Like Tony didn’t know, he’d gone over the charts like once a week for the last--

“Tomorrow,” Bucky said, chest suddenly freezing.

How were they not remotely prepared for this?

“Does it hurt?” Bucky wondered.

“Um… no, but… everything feels all… sloshy. Like a bottle with an inch or so of water in it, that you’re just--”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “Do you think we need to go in to the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” Tony whimpered, his voice tiny and scared and so, so young.

“Okay, okay, you just… you just sit here for a minute, finish your soda, and I’ll-- I’ll call Peggy,” Bucky said. Peggy would know what to do, she always knew what to do.

Peggy did, in fact, know what to do. “Stop yappin’ at me and take your omega to the hospital, you bloody idiot,” she snapped. “Oh, and make sure he eats, they don’t let you eat once you get there. And grab your go bag, don’t forget it!”

Bucky didn’t quite salute the phone when he hung up, but he kinda wanted to. It helped to have someone calm and rational tell him what to do. “Okay, honey, Pegs says we should go ahead and go in. You’re so close to your due date anyway-- won’t hurt anything if you just ate too much or something, to have the doctor give a look, right?”

“Okay,” Tony said, and he still sounded really small.

“Honey?”

Tony managed to raise his chin to look at Bucky.

“We’re gonna be okay, you know that, the babies will be fine and you’re going to be fine. I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”

He leaned in, nuzzled at the spot on Tony’s throat where the long dormant scent gland was. Just breathing it in helped, the smell of Tony, the smell of Bucky on Tony. “Come on, breathe, sugar. You know how.”

The minute trembling in Tony’s limbs slowed, and calmed. “Okay, okay, you’re right, I’m-- oh, my goodness.”

Bucky almost laughed, Tony sounded like an offended sitcom mother. “Peggy says you should eat something,” he suggested.

“I was eating something,” Tony pointed out, but he took another one of the muffins anyway, and started nibbling on it.

“I’ll get the bag and bring the car around,” Bucky said.

“Get the Audi,” Tony said.

“What?”

“You know, the car with the actual backseat and the carseats already installed, because we’re going to be--” Tony sucked a pained breath and let it out slowly “--coming home with two extra passengers.”

“Oh.”

Somehow, Bucky had forgotten about that. He was headed right for the Porsche's keys, the bright yellow sports car being one of Tony’s Christmas presents for him.

“Right.”

Tony was just looking at him, like he’d been practicing his best Peggy Carter is disappointed in you expressions.

“Right.”

Car, bag, baby seats.

Omega.

Bucky went back into the house. “You ready?”

“Almost,” Tony said, stuffing the last of the muffins into his mouth and licking his fingers.

“What else do you need?”

“You-- to tell me you love me and that these babies are coming home to a wonderful, loving home, and we’re going to be great parents.”

“Tony--”

“Yes, Alpha?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And everything’s going to be fine. I love the girls. The babies are coming home in a few days and everything is all ready for them. We’re going to be great parents.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Great. Let’s get in the car, okay, honey?”

***

Tony had the blankets pulled up practically to his chin. Strange how cold he was, now that the babies had been delivered, like they’d been his own personal heater or something.

“My stomach is not as flat as I thought it would be,” Tony complained.

“Baby, you are about twelve hours out from delivery, it’s gonna be some time.”

Tony didn’t like to think about it, caring for the now-empty pouch until the extra skin dried up and sloughed off like the world’s biggest, nastiest sunburn. Why didn’t anyone tell him that in the mandatory state sex-ed classes?

There was a lot, really, that they didn’t cover in sex-ed. And a lot of what they did were out and out lies or blatant exaggerations.

Somehow, Tony expected better of his tax money.

“Hey, Tones, they said you were up for visitors,” Rhodey said, stopping in the doorway.

“Honeybear!” Tony would have bolted out of bed, except he was pretty sure that his pouch had just shifted, which meant he’d really rather go to the bathroom, rather than hug someone and get-- ick. Everywhere. Nope, not thinking about that right now. He decided that post pregnancy ought to be spent in a blissful, medically induced coma while his body got itself back into shape.

“Do you love me?”

“Of cours-- COFFEE, oh, god, you are absolutely my favorite,” Tony said, making grabby hands at the cup. It’d been months since he had a hit of caffeine.

“I, on the other hand, hate you,” Bucky said. Tony was too busy trying to drain the cup in a single swallow to make introductions, he just waved his hand from one to the other, expectantly.

“You’re Tony’s Alpha,” Rhodey said. “Nice to meet you at last, I’ve _heard_ entirely too many good things.”

“Shut up, sourpatch,” Tony muttered. He was only halfway through the coffee, but it was probably worth taking a breath. “You didn’t hear that much.”

“I heard enough, and I will need serious therapy, and I’m going to bill you for it,” Rhodey told him. “Congrats on popping out two ankle-biters.”

“Have you seen them?”

“Theoretically, though a really thick piece of glass,” Rhodey said. “They’re like under high security, do they expect people to steal the babies or what?”

“I think sometimes people do,” Bucky said. “But since you don’t have a wristband, you can’t check them out, either. Hang on, I’ll go get them.”

“Check them out?” Rhodey looked offended. “Like they’re library books? Are there late fees?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, bent over and kissed Tony’s chin, and then nuzzled at the bonding gland, not much, but clearly marking his territory. That was cute. Unnecessary, but cute.

Rhodey watched Bucky walk away, then turned back to Tony. “So, how’d it go?”

“Messy, gross, painful, lots of bodily fluids leaking from places where I really don’t think they ought to. Carol would have been fascinated. Me, not so much. I should only ever leak motor oil,” Tony said. “Typical birth, I’m told. Aside from the fainting.”

“Who fainted, your boy?”

“No, actually it was me,” Tony said. “After the _ordeal_ , they took me into the bathroom for a quick shower and clean up, and I was just stepping out of the shower when my ears got really hot and I pitched over. Squashed one of the nurses completely, and knocked another’s phone into the toilet, but at least no one was hurt.” Aside from Tony’s dignity, being surrounded by omega nurses while he was naked and bloody and fainting like a third grader who’d been told to dissect a worm.

“So, like, what’s the plan?” Rhodey asked, pulling up a chair and sitting at Tony’s side. He looked nice. Rhodey always looked nice, either in his military uniform or the casual clothes that he wore. Rhodey looked nice, put together. Smelled good, in an average, beta sort of way. And at the moment, with Tony’s hormones all out of whack, he was just-- comforting and normal and solid and Tony was going to cry, so he stopped looking at Rhodey.

Studied his fingers, still callused, even if multiple hospital baths had gotten most of the oil off the knuckles. _An omega’s hands hold his habits_ , his mother said in the recess of his mind. But Bucky liked his hands. Not only didn’t mind that Tony had un-omega-ish hobbies, but encouraged them.

His parents hadn’t come yet, to meet their new grandchildren. Tony didn’t know what that said that they hadn’t, or what it said about him that he was glad. He wanted a few days to recover. Maybe be home, in his own clothes instead of the hospital gown.

“Uh, we’re-- you know, gonna try to make it work,” Tony said.

“Such an enthusiastic recommendation, come on, Tony, don’t sear me to a crisp, here.”

“No, I-- sorry, I know the hormone things are weird,” Tony said. “I’m just. Exhausted, too.”

“Do you love him?”

“Absolutely,” Tony said, and he didn’t even need to try to put his earnestness in there, it just came out.

Bucky came back in the room, one baby tucked in each arm. “Here you go--” He handed off one girl to Tony, and the other--

“I don’t, you know, really hold babies.”

“Learn,” Bucky said. “Make sure you’ve got her head, her neck’s not that strong yet.”

Tony nuzzled at the top of his daughter’s head. Babies just… smelled good. He wouldn’t have thought that, before. He’d have thought babies smelled like poop and maybe vomit. But she didn’t. She smelled milky and soft in a way that was hard to describe.

“So, which one’s which,” Rhodey asked, looking vaguely terrified.

“Well, this is Kobik,” Tony said, once again inspecting her tiny little hand. It was utterly fascinating how tiny and adorable her fingernails were. Itsy bitsy pearlescent drops of perfection on fingers curled in loose fists. Kobik had been born with hair so blonde it was practically white, and no one seemed to know where that had come from. Maybe Maria, she was blonde.

“And this must be Morgan,” Rhodey said. Morgan was more obviously Tony’s daughter, a headful of thick, black hair that curled up within hours of her first washing. But the twins’ faces were identical, even if their hair made them look like Jon Snow and Daenerys. “Why on earth did you name this poor kid Morgan? You hate your cousin.”

Tony watched as Kobik flailed her tiny fists. She was obviously considering a tantrum, which might have been more terrifying, except Tony had learned baby crying was so cute it was almost pathetic. _UUuuaaah. Uuuuah._

Morgan, on the other hand, didn’t do much more than blink and yawn in Rhodey’s direction.

“I do hate my cousin,” Tony admitted. “But that’s hardly the name’s fault. I don’t believe in nominative determinism.”

“Yes, he does,” Bucky teased. “Tell him the middle names.”

“Oh, this I gotta hear,” Rhodey said. “Middle names are specifically for embarrassing the shit outta your kids.”

“Morgan Curie Stark,” Tony said, nodding to the baby in Rhodey’s arms. “And Kobik Tesla Stark.”

Rhodey’s mouth wobbled. “Wow, that’s… I could cry, really, that’s just-- you are such a _nerd_.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony admitted. “This one’s an enabler, so, what was I supposed to do?”

“Just accept it,” Bucky said, kissing Tony’s temple, and then poked his finger at their daughter. Kobik curled her fingers instinctively around Bucky’s shiny metal finger, which was just natural and normal, but somehow, looking at Bucky’s face, the way it softened immeasurably at that gesture, just made Tony’s heart feel overstuffed.

Too many feelings, and he was leaking at the eyes again, just a little.

Rhodey was fussing over Morgan, telling her that she was going to have to live up to his expectations to make up for Cousin Morgan’s assholish ways.

“Language, do not swear in front of my children, Sugarmuffin, they are not even two days old yet,” Tony scolded.

“Oh, yeah, I see that holding out,” Rhodey said, shaking his head. “Your kid’s first words were always gonna be _fuck_ or _shit_.”

“I was kinda hoping for _eureka_ , myself,” Tony said.

Kobik opened her mouth again. “No, no,” Bucky said. “No crying, if you start crying then your sister starts crying, and you don’t want to upset Morg, do ya?”

Kobik did not appear to give this much consideration before starting her little baby puling. _Uuuuaaah!_

Tony offered her his pinkie, which she promptly started suckling. “I think she’s hungry, wanna get a bottle?”

Morgan grumbled a little. “Two bottles.”

Bucky relieved Rhodey of his burden, handed off Tony one of the bottles and sat down to let Morgan take her time about eating.

“Fatherhood’s a good look on you, Tones,” Rhodey said. “I-- I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks prickly pear.” Tony looked around at his little family, perfect and loving. “Yeah. I’m… really happy, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's a wrap for that! Thanks for reading, this was my first real dig into ABO dynamics and it was a lot of fun, I'm glad you all enjoyed it. 
> 
> As always, if you want more of a given AU, I'm happy to try to fit it in; let me know on Tumblr or in the Tony Stark Bingo Discord. Your best bet is to always have something specific in mind. "I want to see MOAR PLZ" gets a lot less traction in my brain than "can we see Bucky and Tony dealing with the twins" or something like that is better :D So I have something to shake around in my brain.
> 
> Stay tuned, the next story that will be filling this Every Other Saturday slot is a bit of a shake up for me; something new and different -- Tony and Eddie Brock/Venom team up against a new and dangerous symbiote named Sleet and his scary host.
> 
> A Snowball's Chance will start posting March 16th until it's done.


End file.
